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Texas World Speedway
Even though TWS in College Station Texas is over 200 miles away from my home in Dallas, I still consider it my home track. It’s just a few miles from where I grew up and my parents still only live a couple miles away. I started driving this track back in college in 1993. Back then Texas A&M Sports Car Club would corner work for the Porsche Club of America events at the track. Our payment for corner working was one session each day with an instructor. This was a great deal for a broke college student and so I got my start at this track in my old 280Z.
So move ahead 20 years and now I'm the one instructing and now I'm in a 370z. Here are 6 laps in the clockwise direction on the 2.9 mile track. My GPS wasn’t catching the finish line every lap and would group 2 or 3 laps together. My fastest lap was the last lap on this video but I was over driving the car and made several mistakes so I know there is lots more time to be had. |
Same event/track/direction, same day, more work done to the car, and I'm more than 10 seconds slower than him even on my best lap. Shows you what a difference skill and experience makes :tup:
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Yes we had a lot of fun! This was an instructional event so times are secondary for sure. My green student also had a 370z and he did better than any green student I've had in a long time. He's not on our forum but I told him he should visit to learn more about our great car.
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Just curious if you have an oil cooler.. and what was your temp when you were running?
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Sorry for the stupid question!!!
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Not stupid at all. I have a Setrab series 9 wide 25 row oil cooler. The ambient temp was over 90 degrees both days and I got to 260 degrees in every session. My green student didn't have one and he would hit 280 degrees and would have to back off for about a lap to get the temp back down to 260 before pushing again. Wstar was reporting much lower temps with the same oil cooler I have so I need to work on my setup to get it to work better.
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Yeah I was down at 225 max on the same Setrab. Possible contributing differences:
1) More airflow to the cooler. My grill fins are cut out and replaced with a fairly open mesh, and my cooler might be a hair more towards the center. Also, in addition to the bottom mount to the rad core, I added a top mount to the back side of the crash bumper. That top mount is basically a horizontal wall that prevents air from flowing over the top of the oil cooler to reach the radiator/intakes directly, forcing more through the Setrab. 2) I did upgrade my radiator to CSF's, which is a larger and more efficient core, and I have no condensor (stock or otherwise) robbing airflow to the coolant. Better water cooling undoubtedly has some positive indirect effects on oil temps. 3) DR_ is just driving harder. If you compare the two vids you'll see lots of subtle differences where he had better lines for sure, but then there's a larger overriding difference of effort/balls. You can see it especially clearly starting right after the mini-carousel to the left, when we go uphill on a short straight and then hang a left sweep. From there on for most of the rest of the track, you see me hanging back on steady throttle in a lot of places where he's still deeper in the throttle pedal, or backing off to neutral throttle well before the start of my actual braking zone while he pushes it all the way, etc. A little more throttle and revs all around the track adds up to more heat, too. |
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You should try TWS on a motorcycle. I have spent quite a bit of time there on my track bike. Very fast track and tons of fun.
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I LOVE motorcycles and have a couple dual sports. I did take a prior SV650 I had to MSR Cresson but never to TWS.
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I would love to have data like that on a track around here. :) Would be very cool to have someone with the same car to compare to.
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How much is it to race there and what does that include? I use to see all sorts of cars with tape and numbers driving up hwy6 when I went to pick up my brother every weekend at the U. How much would it cost to keep my oil cool (complete, and I did the install myself if it's not too complicated)? Just curious. Tracking looks fun. It also looks expensive with tires, gas, travel, rock chips and all that.
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With The Drivers Edge it is $315 for the weekend with an instructor. Once you graduate to solo (without a assigned instructor) your price goes down to $295. The next TWS event with them is in September 28-29 and they sell out very quickly.
You can piece yourself together a pretty good oil cooler setup for under $300 or just by a whole kit from Z1 for a little more. Make sure you get one with a thermostatic oil sandwich plate adapter. |
Kool beans. I don't think I will be tracking or will be doing any mods soon. My first mod will be a sound system if I can find a super deal on it. If not, I will just live with the stock.
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I am looking at doing the drivers edge event at Texas Motor speedway on Setember 28-29th with the Z Club of Texas. It will be my first ever track event.
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You should do it but make sign up the day registration opens (7/29) as the spots fill up in one or two days.
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World, not Motor. And most likely I'll see you there! :)
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How does your break handle the tracking? Any need to add break air vent?
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Swap your fluid to Motul RBF-600, and upgrade the pads to something that will stand up to the abuse a little better but aren't *too* aggressive. A lot of people like Carbotech with the XP10 front and XP8 rear pads as a decent starter option. They will be a little more "grabby" than you're used to, but you'll get the hang of it when you're bedding them in on the street. Personally I'm now a fan of Carbon Lorraine's pads, which you can order through Essex - Home page . In those, something like RC-6 front and RC-5+ rear works nicely. They're a little less grabby-feeling under light braking, they have nice modulation and release, and they're relatively maintenance free when it comes to bedding/break-in. They're also more expensive, fewer options for purchase than the CT pads, and sometimes take longer to order, etc. The very next thing on my brakes list would definitely be, as you originally asked, front brake ducts. Stillen's kit is pretty decent and helps a lot, or if you're used to do working on this kind of stuff you could fabricate your own using some quality high-temp aircraft ducting and flanges, etc. The main value in the Stillen kit (over DIY) is they've built nice flanges for the the hot side that bolt to our hubs. While you're in there you could upgrade your brake lines to some stainless ones as well. |
REALLY need to get a passenger seat in my car so I can go to one of these events soon...
MONEY MONEY MONEY. |
Cool, thanks. That's definitely going on my wishlist for the track car.
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+1 for the CL brakes. RC6's on mine, once you get past the noise, you'll be in love.
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FWIW I'm running RC-6E at all 4 corners now with no ice-mode or anything and it's pretty nice, but that's on the Stillen/AP kit, which is a completely different animal. If/when these ever wear down, I may try 6+6E, or even 8+6 or something like that, we'll see.
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Or am I crazy? They don't sell 6E for the Akebonos, or I'd probably have those. The 6 have been absolutely wonderful though. I've put many thousands of street miles plus a dozen autocross days and 4 or 5 track hours on them and they're maybe half way used up... Brilliant. |
I have a Nismo so that fang air duct is not really an option. This was posted yesturday and looks awesome.
http://www.the370z.com/brakes-suspen...t-install.html Thanks for the info. I don't plan on getting all this stuff or anything anytime soon. That is, if I get them. The only thing on my list is sound system and oil cooler kit because TX is friggin hot! Stop and go traffic sucks! |
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(Also in my post above everywhere that I said RC-5E I meant RC-5+ :) ) |
The Driver's Edge event was last weekend and we ran the track counter-clockwise this time. It rained a lot during the weekend and this first session turned out to be my fastest, even with full fuel and a passenger.
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Nice vid! I had to miss out, still waiting to get the car into Lucas for cage work (any day now, supposedly, when the car before me on the list gets pushed out the door), and in the meantime the car's not really in a safely-trackable state until that's done given that all the factory safety gear has gone out the window. With luck I'll make the MSR-H event end of this month, and definitely back at TWS in November (+ whatever else I can pick up at TWS near the end of the year, maybe PDS and/or PCA).
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New guy in Austin
Hello all first post to this site. Just got my Z less than a week ago and am loving it! Never have had a car like this before (fast) let alone something that can handle like this thing does. So I found TWS as I was looking for a driving school that might be able to help me safely find out what this car can do.
I was one of those annoying kids with the Prelude, no exhaust, and was most certainly raising hell zipping around town along with the rest of my rice burner buddies. Well now that I've gotten to be a big boy I'd like to have those same experiences but now having the proper tool (the Z) and place to facilitate it. And for my questions... I am wondering how ever how much wear does this cause to your car? As far as pushing your car beyond or too close to its mechanical limits is this something that is advised by the instructors? Are there and times for the lower level drivers to come out during the week? How long does one typically stay in the lower, non-solo levels? 2011 370Z GM Touring/ Sport no mods. |
There are spots still open in green for January
I guess I was a ricer too. http://www.the370z.com/members/dr_-a...mpionships.jpg |
^ :)
Yeah sign up for that Driver's Edge, Jan 25/26, there's still spots in green. How much wear you put on the car is up to how deep you get into the hobby. The first weekend in Green won't be that bad. Just be aware that if you leave the car bone-stock (which isn't a bad idea the first time out), and you get to push it around a little hard in the green group, you might get into issues with rising oil temps and brake pad fade. As long as you keep an eye (on the oil temp gauge and how the brakes feel) and maybe take it easy for the final couple laps of a session when they're getting too hot, it'll be fine. The instructors at Driver's Edge are all nice people, and there's multiple classroom sessions for green as well - they'll walk you through everything else you need to know. If you're unsure about the state of the car (I assume a 2011 was bought used), you might want to at least replace the brake fluid with some RBF600, maybe do an oil change if the oil in it isn't very fresh - and be sure to download the tech inspection form and get a good local shop to go over the car and sign it off. |
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I'm also in TX (Dallas) and planning on doing driver's edge and a few events in 2014. I'm looking at oil coolers now and based on your experience if you were me starting from scratch, would you go with a 34 row or a 25 row? I should note that I'm a novice so probably won't be pushing it too terribly hard, but it's something I'd like to do 3-4 times a year each year. Based on the above it looks like you got pretty high temps even with a 25, so I thought it was worth asking if the 34 would make more sense. Thanks in advance for your help! |
^ FYI - The 25 or 34 options listed with most of the kits are usually Series-6, unless whoever's selling the kit tells you otherwise. The 25 row on DR_'s (and mine) is a Series-9, which is wider. The major difference for oil cooling in our two setups at that time was airflow - his was mostly sitting in a stock bumper setup; mine had the grill fins cut out and replaced with metal mesh, and had some aluminum sheet used as an upper mount blocking off a lot of the over-the-top flow, forcing more air through the cooler, and a trans cooler sitting next to it so that there wasn't any easy bypass for the air in that direction either. Others have gone further with basically building a "box" extending forward from the oil cooler so that air that enters its frontal area is forced to go through instead of around.
I think, given the shape of the bumper area, the 25-row series-9 is better than the 34-row series-6, but even a 25-row series 6 helps a lot. |
That's really good info, thanks! Glad I didn't buy yet - I'll be sure to ask if it's a series 6 or series 9. I'm not sure if I'm willing to cut and mess with bumper pieces, but I guess if it needs it then I'll do what I have to. This brings me to an additional question:
How tall is your 25 row series-9 in relation to the bumper? Are there any rows that are being blocked because of height or does it sit ok? I'm worried that a good bit of the 34 row will get blocked by the stock bumper and hence won't really do a whole lot better than the 25. As mentioned I'm not too keen on cutting the bumper, but I'd be ok with making some sort of box or sheet to direct more air to it. |
IMO the 25 wide is the way to go. It has the same BTU as the standard 34 but as you mentioned because the top of the 34 is blocked the 25 wide does a better job. Honestly though unless you have a good amount of experience and are pushing the car really hard, this setup will be overkill. If your car is a daily driver there is the downside that it takes longer for the oil to heat up. It also will over cool the oil when you aren't driving it hard, even with a thermostat on it. You will also need to put a block off plate over it during the cooler months.
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That's good to hear. I had a sneaking suspicion the 25 would be plenty, but in another thread I started specific to this topic several gave me the "bigger is better" answer and recommended the 34. However... sounds like the 25 wide would be perfect for my application. I'm planning to log some track time starting in 2014 (maybe 3-4 times per year) and I'm a novice so it won't be pushed to the absolute limit.
The only reason I'm adding the cooler is to try the track this year and I want to make sure that I do everything right so my car (and I) are safe. During regular driving I've never had a temp issue (stays pegged on 220 on 100+ degree days, never higher). My car is a DD, so when you say "longer to heat up" what kind of time are we talking? I do a lot of very short trips because everything is close to my house < 5 mins. How well does the car heat up with the cooler completely blocked? Is it comparable to stock or does it still take a fair bit of time to warm up? Sounds like I'd probably be ok to keep the cooler blocked off all the time except for track days because of all of my short trips. |
Drivers Edge
Did my first Drivers Edge event this weekend at MSR. While I've previously done a few one day events in my Z32, the instruction I got with DE and 2 day format was by far much better. The 3.1 course was likewise much more challenging than the TMS infield and roval or the MSR 1.7 courses I previously ran.
My car ran flawlessly through the weekend. I wasn't trying to be the fastest guy there, but pushed it hard. The track mods included the Z1 34 row oil cooler, SS brake lines, StopTech brake pads, and RBF600. It was a cold weekend so oil temp stayed in 150-170 range. I will attest to the need to have block-off plate for daily driving. With it installed, it takes 10-15 min to reach 160 on cold mornings and stays in 165-170 range after warm-up. Without, it barely comes off the 140 peg even after 20 min (outside air temp 30-40 deg). Finally, I filled the tank before 1st session each day, but did not refill in between because I was only down to 3/4. I experienced no fuel starvation issues. In summary this event gave me a new standard for 'a good weekend' and can't wait to get back to MSR in March. |
^ Yeah Driver's Edge is a really nice group/system/event/whatever, we're lucky to have them around here in TX. I still haven't been up to MSR in Cresson, but I may start branching out to there sometime in 2014, if I can't get my fill at TWS and MSR-Houston :)
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