I went to ButtonWillow this past weekend with RacerFactory. They are a great group to run with, and I'd recommend them to anyone looking for a safe and fun day out at the track www.racerfactory.com.
Anyway, I ran my suspension at a new setting for the first time on a road course...and it was great. It was: Nismo S Tune shock/spring combo, 350 Evo F and R sway bars both set to Medium, 245/40 F and 275/40 R Kumho Ecsta MX Tires set to about 34psi F and 30ps R...temperature was probably 50-55 deg. F.
During the early sessions on the first day, I was actually getting a fair amount of oversteer through slow turns, so I had to drop the rear pressures down from 34psi to about 30psi until the rear end started stick enough. The cold temps weren't letting them stick very well.
Overall, the car had great balance. I didn't have ANY issues with understeer anywhere on the track. The tail was not loose, but easy to coax out when I wanted it. It was also very easy to catch. It didn't feel unstable through the fast sweepers either.
The last time I ran Pocono South when I was living back east, I had the front sway set at med, and the rear set at soft. I enjoyed driving the car that way, but looking back now, it was definitely not nearly as well balanced as it was the other day with the med/med setting.
My friend had a Nismo Z out there (he works for them), but it had a stock suspension. He said he was wallowing a bit and fighting understeer.
That said, I'm not sure how my setup would be on R compound tires. From what some others have said, the S tunes are particularly great with R compounds...don't know if this is true or not.
I've had a full JIC suspension sitting under my desk for a month now...just haven't had a chance to put it on...too much going on with work, etc.! I'm glad I got to run this setup for a while though. It is a great setup for an intermediate driver to really enjoy the car on the street, autoX, or track. I would not recommend this setup for a beginner...drive the car stock for a while. While it's easy enough to catch, I think there could be some pucker factor involved on certain race tracks, or if the tire pressures weren't properly set, etc. Just thought I'd share my settings, as this seems to be a fairly popular setup.

As for my brakes, I was running our 13" kit on the front. They were awesome all weekend. I run the PFC 97's on the front, and Porterfield R4S on the rear. The PFC's are sick. I'm not sure whether they would be enough with R compound tires (may need 01's), but they were great with street tires. I only used about 1/5 of the pad in 6 sessions. I wasn't that heavy on the brakes until sesssions 5 and 6, because I didn't know the track at all, and wasn't really bombing in to turns too hard on day 1. The PFC's held up great though. They have nice bite, and the pedal was high and hard all weekend. I think the best part was the confidence I had going into turns. The rears burned up quite quickly (as we all know). I'll be curious to see the difference when I try our 13" rear kit that's in development.

ps I got a chance to meet ADMAN (Patrick), and what I believe was his wife and friend this weekend. They were very nice, and seemed to be having a blast. I was doing official StopTech business on Sat., and working pregrid on Sun., so I didn't have much time to talk, but it was great meeting you all!

 

Great info, J Ritt....

One question. I have a similar setup (s-tunes all around/13" Stoptech), my question is what do you think of the Kuhmo MX's? I am in the process of selling my 19" Iforged wheels with S-03's and I think I am going to go with the Nismo LM-GT4 wheels with the same size MX's you have. Any thoughts on the MX's vs S-03's or T1-S's?

Also, Droid if you read this, do you still like your MX's vs. the S-03's with the same setup as me? How would you compare performance and secondly tread wear?

 

What did you do to align the front camber??

 

Nice write up.

I just reset my rear swaybar to run on the medium setting and am hoping for better results (i.e: less understeer) this next time out. We'll be running back out at Buttonwillow in early February so we'll see how the adjustments (and new R-compound tires) fare.

 

Jran76,
The MX is the only tire out of that bunch that I've run. It is a good street/track tire IMO. They have good grip...break away is completely predictable...they talk a bit...they'll start to screech before letting loose...in the wet on the street they are fine...they wear pretty well...price is low. Overall, a good all around tire.

Ooops....forget to mention. Alignment is set to the recommended Nismo S Tune specs.

Middle-middle sway adjustment on the Evo's is fun.

 

How easy is it to adjust 350evo sways?

What are the Nismo S tune specs? I have s-tune and don't know what the specs should be.

Why did you go with jic instead of staying with s-tune?

thanx

 

Uro,
Do a search on this forum for Nismo S Tune alignment spec...or just start a new thread if you can't find the spec. Call Jeff or Jason at Performance Nissan, and they'll be able to tell you as well. Any dealer that sells Nismo should be able to tell you, but some of them aren't so 'mod-friendly' as the guys at Performance.

The sway bars are pretty easy to adjust. You just need to loosen the bars, unbolt the endlinks, and then move them to the desired setting. My suggestion is to use Rhino ramps (sold at any local pep boys or walmart for about $30. If you use the ramps, you won't have to mess around with a jack, and the suspension will be preloaded like it should be when doing the adjustments. I would also recommend having a good cordless drill on hand. Buy some attachments so that you can use sockets with the drill. The bolts holding the front bar in place are particularly long. Break the bolts loose with a wrench, and back them out with the drill. This will save you a TON of time. Once you've done it, it shouldn't take you more than 1/2 per end of the car tops to make an adjustment. I've only changed my setting once since installing them anyway. If you're looking for good neutral setting for street and track, the S Tunes with Evo bar set middle F middle R is great. You won't even need to adjust.

I am going to a more adjustable setup for track driving. My chief engineer here at StopTech agreed to help me set my car up...corner weighting, alignment, etc. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't have some good resources...being in the industry has now put a lot of very knowledgeable people at my disposal for assistance. Otherwise, I probably would have just stuck with the S Tune setup.