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Were you granny shifting and not double clutching like you should?
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Your alignment may fit your need today, but may not as your skill goes up. You will need to keep track of the before and after numbers, and you impression of each, your lap times, the difference in tire wear.... |
why are you ruining this man
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Things in your notebook.
1. Alignment spec's. 2. Tire pressure. Cold and right after you come off the track. 3. Track temp. 4. Weather conditions. Air temp, humidity, wind, cloud's- no cloud's, rain. 5. Track, is it ccw or cc. 6. Track condition. Smooth or bumpy. Where's the bumps, dry, damp, wet, dusty, marbles on the track. 7. How you feeling. 8. Number of sessions run. At what time of day. Length of each session. 9. Maintenance done before track day. 10. Etc. |
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What gear to be in for each turn |
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Besides all the car prep, one of the biggest components to my track day planning is food. If I don't eat a decent meal every 2-2.5 hours, my brain starts to fade, harder to make decisions. Worse when you are burning ~4000 calories during a track day.
I can't make it on breakfast and concession stand pizza at lunch time. Breakfast at home or hotel, get to track, register, unpack, pre-track prep, Eat (sometimes during driver meeting), Track, check stuff/rest, Eat, Track, check stuff/rest, repeat.. all day. And hydrate, of course. 3 Pre-packed sandwiches in a small cooler, a cold meal like a bean salad or something, nuts/trail-mix, protein bars for a supplement if needed.. if it'll fit some fruit. heh.. that's not just track days, thats doing 'whatever' away from home for more than a few hours. Kind of a pain in the ***.. |
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I try and bring a gallon or more of cold drinks, plus ice and frozen towels (great for cooling off with). |
I'd bring a change of clothes too, considering you're gonna be sweating like hell
This is where a buddy with a van helps out SO much |
One of the things I noticed is my breathing. If I'm breathing slow, relaxed, and things seem to be happening in slow mo. I'm ahead of the car. I'm fast. If I'm breathing fast, labored, and everything seems to be happening really quick. Feels like I'm playing catch up with the car. I'm slow.
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And since its ridiculously hot, keep yourself as cool as possible. The calmer and more alert you are, the less mistake you'll make. I brought my company car filled with water, ice and tools... and when it would get hot, Id jump in and cool myself :happydance:
But of course that's not ideal. Also, talk to the guys that know the track, ask them for tips and tricks. I learned a lot from asking. |
Guys thank you for all of the help! all of the pointers made my day much better...here is a 2 min clip pf me driving
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LGI2-FyqVc&t=18s |
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even made me take the build way more in a track direction |
it's the G-forces that you experience on a track, both in acceleration/deceleration and in turns, that are unlikely to be replicated on the street/canyon.
Also, depending on the track . . . elevation changes. you should check out sears point/infineon/sonoma raceway, whatever its called now. Multiple, blind turns at the beginning of the track as you climb uphill. First time was mindblowing, trusting the instructor that you can in fact hit the apex when you can't see whats coming up next |
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Also the 370z doesn't get the respect it deserves as a track car/sports car. You have the miata/s2k/frs crowd who say it's too heavy, then you have the Porsche/BMW/Mustang/Camaro/Corvette crowd who say it doesnt have enough power. They're not completely wrong, but that's not an excuse to dismiss the car and ditch it. If you love the car, get the seat time with it at the track and it will reward you and surprise some people along the way. As you develop with the car, you are going to find there's a lot it has to offer in it's stock form and even more so as you start to tune the handling with coil overs, brakes, sway bars and tires. 1st track day my 370z had cold air intakes and a front sway bar at Streets of Willow CW, the rest came down to me...I had an amazing time, a day i'll never forget. If you're interested in tracking with a dedicated group of Nissan enthusiasts, hope you might consider coming out to a Nissan Challenge event. We are scheduled to resume our 2020 season in September if COVID conditions permit it. https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...e2&oe=5F362BD4 |
I didn’t see sebring
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the instructors really get in your head....i'm like i dont think i got this and they're like no you got this! |
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it kinda sucks because the canyons dont give me much satisfaction anymnore. I live down the hill right by topanga canyon and 10 min from malibu canyon, so it was a couple times a week thing for me. I want sway bars but I heard the install is up to 8 hours front and back?!? |
that doesn't sound right
thats for engine crap when you have to remove a buncha of difficult to reach bolts sway bars aren't that involved |
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Sway bars should not take you longer than 2 hours if you're decently able to work on cars. The fronts are exposed by simply removing the front plastic aero pan, and the rears you need to remove the rearmost portion of the exhaust (possibly also mid pipe - I can't remember). It sucks to do without a lift, but it's entirely possible. I did mine in about that time a few years ago.
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So I have some good news for you and your friend. Nissan Challenge is held on open track days, so we are intermingled with drivers who are not necessarily competing in a timed time-attack event if that makes sense. He's more than welcome to join in on the fun and be included in Subie Challenge which typically runs on the same days as us. https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...27&oe=5F3C813C You and him can still most likely run in the same session if your experience levels are on the same level (Beginner, intermediate, Advanced...etc) and compare lap times amongst yourselves, but your lap times and points will count to your respective series...yours will count for Nissan Challenge and his for Subie Challenge. Also regarding the sway bars, highly recommend you only replace the front sway bar, many have reported that changing the rear bar and leaving at it's softest setting causes the car to have a sudden snap oversteer characteristic. Hotchkis pretty much makes the best bar on the market for our cars. Changing out the front bar shouldn't take more than a couple hours although at times it's tough loosening the nuts on the end links, so you might need a breaker bar and some good wrenches |
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Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!! so much info I will for sure look into that event, also thanks for the advice on sway bars. I was about to buy front and rear but what you told me convinced me to stay with only front. Also everyone is sold out and backordered for the time being |
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Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk |
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I'd recommend you leave the stock rear bar on for now, but when it comes time for coilovers you're going to want to either disconnect it or remove altogether. |
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As for the bushing they are a good investment but if you are going to upgraded the front end get SPL front upper A arms. They are spendy but totally worth it in setting up and maintaining, caster, camber and tow! Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk |
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I hope I was in US, so I can join these events :yum: looks fun with other fellow Nissan drivers. |
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So with the OEM suspension the spring rates and rebound/damping are soft enough to allow the rear suspension to transition smoothly over bumps and undulations in the road while under load. So you can keep the stock rear bar and everything works fine. When you change to coil overs with higher spring rates and stiffer rebound/damping and keep the rear bar, it doesn't translate very well over the road at speed anymore. It sort of skips around and causes the rear end to snap. So an easy way to combat that is to soften the rear bar to your comfort, but in general the bar gets disconnected or removed because even the stock bar introduces too much snap oversteer, which you then have to try and dial out with your coilovers. Which is why i've never mounted my Hotchkis rear sway bar to this day. If you do a little research on the forum here, you'll find similar feedback from other fairly experienced drivers. It's easier to remove the snap oversteer and then control that rotation with refined adjustments to the coilovers by increasing the stiffness one click at a time. To illustrate, this is what it looks like with coilovers set to full soft settings, hotchkis front bar installed and the OEM rear sway bar on. In the end it really all comes down to preference, this was excessive rotation for me so I changed my setup accordingly. |
Interesting. I may have to unbolt mine and test it out on the next track day.
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If it is too understeery you can dial out some of that understeer by playing around with your coilovers and stiffening the rear. |
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