First Track Day - Thoughts
 

Well had my first track day and here were my thoughts:

1) Car Setup

• Stillen CBE/HFC's'
• Stillen 19 Row Oil Cooler
• Hawk HP+ Pads
• Slotted Front Rotors
• Hoosier R6 Tires All Around on Stock 18's

2) Likes

• Stock Handling was fantastic
• Brakes and Tire Combo was amazing (only used about half of both tires/brake pads for over 6 sessions)
• Power was plenty for the course
• Oil cooler did its job well
• SRM!!!

3) Dis-Likes

• Towards the end of the day my clutch was hardly working at all, and got stuck to the floor once. I let it cool off for about 30 minutes before trying again and it was okay, but not great.
• Fuel starvation happened about every lap when I was under half a tank...had to keep filling up. Are you kidding me Nissan??
• Head-room sucks with a helmet on

All in all was a great experience and I'm already signed up to do it again in two weeks. I pushed the car pretty hard and was able to keep up with some much higher powered/tuned cars.

I stuck right behind a Cayman S for a while, but it also had R-Compounds on and he was a better driver with a faster and nimbler vehicle. There was a guy in a new C6 Z06 that I was chasing down. He spun out on the first lap right in front of me, and ended up right in front of me again when he got back on the track so he was obviously not going all out, but it says a lot about a road course...a faster driver can compensate a lot for a slower car. I was waved by by a guy in an NSX as well, which surprised me because I thought it was a faster car, guess not.

There is supposedly a video of me chasing down the Z06, which I will try and post if I can get my hands on it!!

Bleed the clutch and brakes with quality DOT 4 fluid (Amsoil/Motul to start, Castrol SRF if you are rich)

You are actually lucky your fuel cut only happened with 1/2 a tank or less. I get it with 3/4 tank. I basically need to leave the track after every session to fill the tank up to avoid fuel cut.

Looks like you had fun though.

a 5 gallon jug is part of the checklist now

I remember passing you....lol

My 350 did fine on the track with less than 1/4 tank. In fact, I think it helped with weight issues. I know that I need to upgrade my brakes. I ate through the pads and rear rotors.

Overall, I think your car looked good on the track. Maybe shift less to avoid overheating your clutch? I stayed in 3rd and 4th most of the track.

I think I remember that, you were moving man haha. I haven't heard much about the 350's having issues with the fuel which has gotta be nice, it was so annoying when the fuel would cut out...and it was ALWAYS right after the last RH turn before the straight!!

I was nearly always in 3rd or 4th, 5th for a little while on the straight. My pads held up really well, I got a spare set that had about 50% left from a guy on these boards just in case, and as luck would have it my new ones still have more than those. They had pretty great feel the whole time too, so an A+ for the HP+ from me :tup:

sounds like you had a great time!

I ended up grinding my rear rotors on the last run of my day. :facepalm:

That's now my winter project: Upgrade rotors and pads.

Interesting.. I don't know why the Z would have the starvation issues.. Tracked my G sedan the whole day and never had that issue even at 70mph 100 degree sweepers and with the suspension i had, i had to pull over 0.95 Gs the whole time during those turns. Towards the end i had close to 1/4 tank and still didn't have issues. :(

I guess that is why it is bargain compared to other cars with similar performances, just minor issues like this would get kind of annoying..

Looks really fun though. :)

probably something small making a difference

running r-comps will cause lateral g fuel starvation real quick on this car. I kinda want to try out R6's on the Z, but they don't last more than a couple trackdays...

yeah, I get fuel starvation at as low as two dots low on the fuel gauge. Like Cossie said, 5 gal gas can is part of the list, at least at tracks that don't have fuel available.

Yep, once there are 3 lights out I know I have to pit in soon as fuel cuts are imminent, and that is with NT-01's not even full R-comps. It does depend on the track though, tracks with uphill right hand turns are the worst as far as this goes.

anyone have a picture of the fuel pump assembley? i wonder if we can modify it, maybe they use a pickup tube that we can extend it

i dont recall how many lights, but i started getting fuel starve around 5 gallons into a full tank. this is with re11

Wow, didn't know the fuel starvation issue was so pronounced. I usually go to the track with a near-full tank and haven't gone below half by the end. Haven't experienced this problem yet. Though the track I go to doesn't have an elevation change or long sloping turns. On my first time out I forgot to switch off VDC and on exiting several turns there would be hesitation until traction was regained.