First let me thank Speedventures for putting on another great event. It was nice to finally see some other Z's getting their feet wet on the track (although one was a rental!!! ).

Well, here are the results. Just click the link and then click submit, you will be taken to the results by class. Click the laptime at the top of the page and you can see the overall results:

Event Results Streets of Willow 8/3 CCW

Well, I won T6 and if I get bumped to T5 (which might happen) I would be second to Richard (RL). My car is really more in between these two classes though, obviously pretty fast for T6, but not really fair to put me in T5 where Richard's S2K has a $4K suspension on it!! But if they bump me, I just have to spend more money!! It was really nice though to be at the top of the timesheets being 6th overall.

This was my first time out on the Toyo RA-1 race rubber. What a great tire. It may not be the fastest, but damn is it consistant. It's not slow either as it knocked a whopping 5.3 seconds off my previous time out in this track configuration. I ran half of my 34 timed laps in the 34's with my FTOTD being a 34.0. The RA-1 really didn't feel like anything other than a sticky street tire because it was very progressive at the limit and did nothing strange.

The Z ran really well, but not perfect. Understeer was the word of the day. I am gonna die if I don't get some more negative camber into my front wheels because nothing else is gonna cure the understeer, damn Nissan for watering down the Z for the masses. Look at this pic of my front tire wear:



The outside edge is on the right of the picture. Notice how every tread band is worn down at an angle with more wear on the outside than the inside. Really strange looking. This is why I think there are so many feathering issues also. I am looking into every possible source right now to get front camber adjustment ASAP.

Next, the S-Tune suspension, while great for street tires, is overwhelmed by the higher grip of the RA-1's. To be fair, it's not what the S-Tune was designed for anyway. Time to find something a LOT more race oriented for me.

Next was the heat. The temp meter went up fairly high, but not close to overheating. It was about 100 degrees out to be fair and with a newly repaved nice black track surface, I am sure the track temps were a good bit higher than that. It was nothing that running a half lap at 7/10ths speed couldn't cure though.

Brakes were marginal. That is probably my fault. While the Hawk HP+ pad is more than enough pad for street tires, you need to go up another level when running R tires. The fluid wasn't boiling as the pedal remained nice and hard, it was the pad that was fading. Six laps or so into a session and I couldn't even get the ABS to actuate at the end of the straight now matter how hard I pushed. I have also noticed (and you can see in my pick) that the paint on my front calipers has turned a nice brown color from the gold. That is not dirt folks, that is the paint baking. The rears looked fine as did the rear pads. I will have different pads for the next event as well as some brake ducting in place hopefully.

Lastly, the tranny felt like crap on the 3rd to 2nd downshifts. Nice crunch every time. I'll take another please.




Hopefully I will see some more of you guys out at Buttonwillow on the 23rd.

 

who drives there Z harder than THIS guy?

 

hopefully me. give me a couple years.

 

I'm surprised by this. When you reach a certain level, like where you are at, understeer is mostly driver induced. My first set of S-03s looked even worse than yours the first time I hit the track because I spent all day late apexing and running out of tarmac. Last time I went out with just the sways on, the understeer was all but absent and I was running 10-15 MPH faster average speeds.

Where did all of the scrub go? I quit fighting the car and learned a better line.

 

so your saying that is all driver induced?

 

In stock form, absolutely not. Just sways changes everything. Steve's got the full kit and still complains about understeer. I don't understand why because it can't be even 1/10th of what it was in the horrible, stock trim. Perhaps the new staggered set-up threw out all he knew from previous outings on the much closer ratio 245 and 255 tires. Perhaps that extra 5 seconds off lap times means a new line is needed. I do know that the faster you get, you find yourself adjusting the line accordingly, or at least that's what should be happening.

 

My $0.02.

A 5 second per lap improvement is frigging awesome with just a stickier tire....OK, the wider rims helped. At Steve's level......which is VERY HIGH, he's overloading the stock spring rates, even his Nismo set up. Experienced track drivers I've talked to say to expect a 2 sec. per lap improvement with sticky tires.

I'm thinking the.......weird, extra ball joint is....screwing things up????? I have not read what it's benefits are. Nore, what it does. Nore can I figure it out. I forget what the caster specs are, but they seem rather BIG for a rear wheel drive car. As camber & caster are very intertwined in a dynamic cornering situation.

 

yeah I second that ..great event good to be with another z forum member? Nice meeting ya steve "raceboy"..the rental z option someone used was kinda funny..

 

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Keep in mind that my cornering speeds were up about 10% which produces an exponential ammount of force on the car. Basically the car is rolling into the corners more and you are now presenting the tire to the road at a different angle than you would be on street tires because the street tire would have broken traction long ago.

I always knew the S-Tune was going to be a stopgap solution for me. Now I need to find the serious solution. I know there is JIC and Tein with the JIC FLTA2 being fairly serious. There is also the Ohlins setup which is the same as the Nissan R-Tune. You should see some of the $4000 Nitrogen charged, remote reservoired, and infinitely adjustable setups on the S2k's. Sick I tell ya!!!