Mt Tam I am's Driving Journal

blackcherry20

maybe your next drive should be to the doctors office?

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Grand Sport Corvette Arctic White

JARblue

Goaded a BMW into a ticket yesterday at lunch. Cruise control in the left hand lane at 70 mph in a 65 mph zone. There was a police suburban up ahead that I was pacing. The middle lane has a good bit of traffic, so I just hang out in the left hand lane since there's no one behind me. A few miles later, I see a car catching up in the left hand lane. He starts to catch up as I come across a caravan of cars in the middle lane. At this point I speed up to 75 to pass them so I can move over for them (turns out to be a girl in a BMW). Well I'm about half way past the caravan with three cars left, and she seems to accelerate and get right up on my a$$. I thought, well if you're gonna be like that, you can wait, and proceeded to let off the accelerator back down to 70 mph (still have cruise control on). As I reach the last car, I downshift to 4th and punch it 10 mph faster (so I'm going about 80 mph), get over in the middle lane, engine brake a bit, shift into 6th, and reset cruise control at 70 mph. This idiot in the BMW comes roaring past me at 80+ as we go over a hill and right into a speed trap.

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blackcherry20

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Grand Sport Corvette Arctic White

blackcherry20

Just found out...car club i belong to for auto-x is co-sponsoring a grand opening at All Speed Innovations in lebanon ohio on saturday. They are putting my car on the front line! Lol!!! Excited!
And nervous.
Another challenge for me to meet and blow through

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Grand Sport Corvette Arctic White

Mt Tam I am

Congratulations. What does being on the front line entail?

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Nissan Motorsports 34R Oil Cooler. Stillen CBE. Hotchkis Sport Sway Bars. KW Variant 3 Coilover System. Stillen Gen3 CAI. Michelin Pilot Super Sport. Stillen Brake Ducts. Carbotech™ XP10/XP8 Pads. Z1 Front Rotors. Z1 Stainless Brake Lines. Two degrees of camber

blackcherry20

Parking! Lol


(I assumed (i know) that there will be enough cars to have more than one row there from our club...i have a guaranteed front row prime spot so that everybody who shows up will see it as they come into the lot)!
But we'll see i'm sure it wont be anything like i thought it would/should be.

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Grand Sport Corvette Arctic White

Mt Tam I am

So on Sunday I expect a lazy day. I am reminded of a sales tax obligation due the state at the end of the month so I drive to work to pick up some sales figures.

Sunday with perfect weather sounds like a good day for a drive, but that is how it sounds to hundreds of others too. Luckily at this hour, everybody is going the opposite way. Cool beans.

I am so pleasantly surprised to have an open road. A couple of bikes screwed me up a bit but hey, I'll take the drive I just got any day. Some other sports cars were going the opposite direction in first gear, while I flew past. Poor bastards.

I got to work, picked up a tiny bit of paperwork and was off like a shot.

I even had a partially decent drive home. I expected nothing but still had a few miles open up.

When the kitchen sink needed to be repaired later in the afternoon, I was in bumper to bumper traffic the entire way but nowhere near as much traffic.

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Nissan Motorsports 34R Oil Cooler. Stillen CBE. Hotchkis Sport Sway Bars. KW Variant 3 Coilover System. Stillen Gen3 CAI. Michelin Pilot Super Sport. Stillen Brake Ducts. Carbotech™ XP10/XP8 Pads. Z1 Front Rotors. Z1 Stainless Brake Lines. Two degrees of camber

Mt Tam I am

I found out why the roads are so much less impacted. It is the government shut down. There are two National parks along the road I live. Instead of having the parking lot open or the two toll takers, they hired armed guards to keep Americans out, while laying off the regular two employees.

This is punishment for us all but I must confess I am ahead as the roads have a small fraction of the cars upon them.

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Nissan Motorsports 34R Oil Cooler. Stillen CBE. Hotchkis Sport Sway Bars. KW Variant 3 Coilover System. Stillen Gen3 CAI. Michelin Pilot Super Sport. Stillen Brake Ducts. Carbotech™ XP10/XP8 Pads. Z1 Front Rotors. Z1 Stainless Brake Lines. Two degrees of camber

blackcherry20

Sooo, beautiful drive today in "dirty Harry"! Lol

A bit of spirited driving, passed a pick up dragging a big camper-wanted to woohoo as the Z responded so well to my commands.
And you gotta love rural driving. I drove through
1-grass clippings-at least twice
2-horse poo
3-a huge pile of leaves that some JA was BLOWING into the road
4-soybean droppings as the farmers are harvesting right now.
I also passed an Amish buggy and left a dually truck in exhaust fumes on the four-lane. Lol'd at that one-i pulled out in his lane, he switched lanes (thinking i was going to slow him down). Well, i was four car lengths in front of him when i hit third!
I

Love

This

Car

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Grand Sport Corvette Arctic White

wstar

The rotor thing plagued me for about a year before I got mine sorted out. Went through all kinds of iterations on brake setup changes and kept having problems. There's no one answer to keep it from recurring regularly, but I can offer a mixed bag of various things that help:

1) Obviously, quality rotors. If the rotors genuinely have bad runout from the factory, there's not much that's gonna stop it from getting worse from pad deposits and heat. Of all the random brands and types I've tried on this car, the ones that held up the best were DBA-brand 1-piece and whatever 2-piece it is that Stillen's including in their APRacing BBK (not sure whose rotors they are really). You can check runout at initial install with a dial gauge mounted firmly relative to the spindle. Sometimes if the runout is minor, it can be corrected by remounting the rotor at a different hole offset to let the small rotor/hub variances level each other out (sort of like what a good tire place does with tires and wheels). There are only 5 positions to try, so just iterate until you get minimum runout on the dial gauge.

2) Pads! Often "rotor" problems are really pad deposit problems. Some pads are better or worse under different driving conditions about leaving patchy deposits on the rotor. Once any uneven deposit layer has built up, it tends to self-reinforce the pattern and make itself worse over time (like the ripples that develop in a dirt/gravel driveway self-reinforce from the suspension bounce of cars driving over them). Some of this isn't so much about a pad being universally "bad", just not suited to conditions (cold street driving vs hot race driving, etc). Using a very race-only pad on your car while you DD it between events can lead to problems. So can tracking street pads (although they generally just burn off anyways...).

3) Pad Bedding! Google about it, read ten different versions of the instructions for bedding different pads. They're all shooting for the same goal, and it's tricky, but if you read enough versions of the process you get a feel for what's really going on. Drive the pads with minimal braking for a while first just to let them seat level and wear into the right shape first (this is often left out of instructions it seems). Don't over-cook things on the break-in, and take extra care with the cool-down period after bedding. Try to time it out so you can get on a highway for half an hour at that point, in no traffic.

4) Stopping/Parking habits: don't ever bring the car to a halt on the brakes and stand on them. Ever. But especially any time the system's hot. That just bakes pad material into one spot on the rotor. Try to bring the car down to a very slow roll, then get off the brakes and let the car roll to a stop for the last few feet, especially parking or if you're going to be stuck at a light. It's hard in traffic, so just don't drive in commuter traffic if you can help it.

5) Driving habits, esp on-track: try to make your braking zones shorter and harder. You may get from 120->80 both ways, but doing it more abruptly (without locking the wheels, of course) generates less heat than dragging out the braking zone over a longer stretch. Less overheating -> more life. Try not to brake hard when the car isn't going straight, that puts odd sideways stress on things too. Trail-braking is fine, but that's different than slamming on the brakes too late when you've already turned in, which there's a hundred other reasons not to do.

6) Front ducts help a ton with not overheating the front rotors on this car.

And I know they're expensive, but the single best thing I've done for my brake situation is switching to Carbon-Lorraine's pads. They're not finicky about break-in procedure (they really don't even have a break-in procedure), and seem to maintain themselves and the rotors really well even under varying conditions (although they're still not ideal for a ton of street driving). They'll clean off deposits from street pads if you want to switch back and forth, too. The only real downside is the cost, but IMHO it costs less than throwing out barely-used rotors on a regular basis and having frustrating track weekends.

I'm using the CL pads now on the Stillen/APRacing BBK and I love this setup (+ Stillen's ducts + RBF600). I also tried the CL pads on the stock calipers (+ Stillens ducts + RBF600) with DBA 4000-series one-piece rotors and that went really well, too.

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7AT Track Car!
Journal thread / Car setup details

TerribleONE

Really wish I could go run Laguna but I think my car is way to loud... Had the privilage of riding it on my GSXR1000 a few years ago and it was a blast.. So much different than Willow Springs.. LOVE the corkscrew

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Mt Tam I am

I am only at 85db with Stillen CBE and Gen 3 intakes. 90db is all you need to beat.

On a bike Laguna would be wild. I see where the bikes once had a berm to contend with that has since been beaten down by traffic.

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Nissan Motorsports 34R Oil Cooler. Stillen CBE. Hotchkis Sport Sway Bars. KW Variant 3 Coilover System. Stillen Gen3 CAI. Michelin Pilot Super Sport. Stillen Brake Ducts. Carbotech™ XP10/XP8 Pads. Z1 Front Rotors. Z1 Stainless Brake Lines. Two degrees of camber

TerribleONE

I may have to take some readings, I wonder how hard it is to track down a decible meter and how much they cost.. I guess I could always avoid going WOT by the sound tower. I know my car is a lot quieter than those running F.I exhausts NA..

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Mt Tam I am

Many have their pipes angled away from the tower just for this reason.

Digital Sound Level Meter
Model: Digital 2055 | Catalog #: 33-099
$49.99
Digital Sound Level Meter : Sound meters | RadioShack.com

I'd love to invite you.

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Nissan Motorsports 34R Oil Cooler. Stillen CBE. Hotchkis Sport Sway Bars. KW Variant 3 Coilover System. Stillen Gen3 CAI. Michelin Pilot Super Sport. Stillen Brake Ducts. Carbotech™ XP10/XP8 Pads. Z1 Front Rotors. Z1 Stainless Brake Lines. Two degrees of camber

blackcherry20

MVSCC Season Highlights - YouTube

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Grand Sport Corvette Arctic White