So I track on these tires and idk what your guy was talking about. So much grip!


From the first warm up I could feel the night and day difference. And I mean you normally see a car or two with the same tires, but there was over twelve cars running the new RS-RR tires!


I can't imagine once I can actually get some heat in the tires. Track was too cold to net faster time s

Thanks, I'm excited! Now the long wait for it to get here haha.

Really? I didn't have much grip at all, the car kept wanting to step out. I've decided already that I'll be switching to the R888R for next season, especially after tracking on the R888. Those things were absolutely fantastic compared to the RS-RR.

Omg we must have different driving modes cause I'm slow because I drive aggressively but still I can feel the amount of grip


And the 888s are some of the most greasy tires in a couple laps

Hahaha, sounds like we're total opposites.

I co-drove a BRZ all day when my slave cylinder failed. We ran probably 13 20-30 minute sessions that day on R888s and they never gave me any fuss. They had been used the day before that, and daily driven on for nearly 3 months, and had a track weekend on them before that as well.

We killed them off that weekend, but holy crap was I impressed. Sold me on the tires right then and there.

The RS-RR just kept stepping out on me, they refused to grip for some reason. Instead of gripping/marbling, they would just melt.

If I can afford them when I need new tires I'm going for RE-71R but if not I'll get the RR again


The 71s are notably faster then any other street tire

The 71r is a great street tire.

I think a lot of my problem was that I'm pushing my car into the corners faster than it normally would be going into it. Aside from that, it really just seemed like the RR was melting more than anything.

Can't be worse then me lol I'm a horrible driver. Too stubborn to learn


And I'm just having fun anyway

Hey Quinton! Went back a few pages and read about the OMP wheel and oil cooler setup, came out super clean man congrats! I almost bit the bullet last year and installed a sparco wheel and sparco QR, but ultimately thought better of it bc I didn't want to deal with relocating the radio and cruise control buttons (sad I know, but the Z is still a daily driver lol). Looking forward to seeing that new purchase installed. Keep it up homie!

Lmao, well as long as you're having fun! I'm really into time attack, had my eyes on it since I was a wee little guy. Always loved cars, especially time attack. Time trials are also super cool, but I find the rush of time attack to be more enjoyable.

Thanks, buddy! That means a lot haha. Your build is super clean, I'll be ripping the interior out here in a month or so, hoping to keep it as clean and simple as possible. I'll have a lot of stuff to fix when I pull up the interior and cut out the speaker bar/cubby area, and under the carpet is going to be rough, I already know that because the car got stuck on a few alignment racks. Going to have to try and get the interior floor pans back to their original shape :icon27:

I totally get the issue of the the cruise control, etc.. Though I didn't have the radio controls. Losing CC sucked a lot, but I totally got used to it. I took my amps and sub out for the last track weekend and haven't had them since. Been about a month of DD on the Z since the track weekend with no radio... the noises... they're awful.

Thanks, bud!

I also ended up picking up some stuff from Z1 for Black Friday. Picked up some SPL outer tie rod ends as well as some black coolant hoses. Will hopefully be doing cooling stuff over the winter.

So much to do, such little time!

Awesome progress homie. I wish you the best of luck with the momentum and track days. You are in a cooler location then myself which should help :D Your car has come a long way man.

I know they are an older tire but I had great luck on track with the rs3 as a learning tire. Greasy at first(esp at autox). It would be tough to beat the 8's though.

Wish you the best of luck with the car buddy.

Chris

Thanks, buddy! That means a lot. It actually doesn't get much cooler here haha. We see temps of 100+ during the months of June-July, and then through September it stays in the high 80-mid 90 range, so it can still get pretty warm here. Not to mention the humidity :icon22:

I'm planning on travelling to Road Atlanta for Z Nats/GridLife next season. Hopefully the motor doesn't blow though! :dunno:

The RS3 are pretty good tires, someone in our team runs them but he's switching to the 8s as well I believe. The 71r is a great street tire from my experience, the RS-RR were garbage to me. A few of us will be running R888R's and one of our members will be on NT01's, one on Hoosier R7's, and another on Kumho slicks.

Thanks so much for the well wishes! Hopefully we can finally meet at ZDayZ, only problem I see is that my car is going to be so tracked out at that point it may be annoying to drive on the dragon haha

Never annoying to drive on the dragon(for you) your other half will hate it. Hence the trailer hahaha.

The 71s are a good street but better used for auto then wasted on street. The rs3 were a great street / track day for novice tire. I have been holding off on hoosiers or any slick just so I dont cover up my fk ups.

I hope I can be at znats next year.

Keep it up bud.

Chris

Yeah, never annoying to drive on the dragon. I guess it would just be weird driving a fully prepped track car on the dragon haha. But yeah, the second (better) half isn't one for touge. She dies love riding along at the track, which is really nice.

I'm probably still going to come to ZDayZ, I doubt I'd be pushing the car too hard on the road anyway.

Really looking forward to ZNats more than anything, I'm sad I missed out this year, but it is senior year haha. One more semester then I can do all of the track days I want :)

But yeah I totally agree about the 71r not being wasted on the street. I'd say they're a better track tire than the RS3, but I can't personally say for sure since I've not tested them on the track, just hearsay. I'll jump to slicks not this upcoming season, but maybe 2018 season. Time will tell for sure, but at the moment I'm just hopping to the R888R.

Thanks, buddy! Hopping over to your thread now :)

I like the R888 a lot actually, but for more street use but near equal performance, same 2R compound i've been running the Yokohama Advan Neova AD80R now....been pretty impressed.

Long overdue post - my apologies. Please accept this beautiful picture from the October track weekend that my buddy took as a form of my apologies.

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So I guess we will start with some parts that I ordered during black friday that showed up. FTR Splitter Rods 9.25-11" length for when I build my front splitter (to balance out the wing), Z1 coolant hoses (doing my cooling system eventually), SPL outer tie rod ends.

I ordered the tie rod ends because I thought I had a clunk coming from the tie rod ends (they were going bad, I could wiggle them with my hands, but I wanted to fix the noise primarily). Unfortunately, it did not fix the noise, but hey - now I can adjust my bump steer!

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I can't lie - these are by far the NICEST support rods I've seen so far. You can tell these are quality when you hold them and when you adjust them, so smooth and perfect. The APR ones are like a toothpick compared to these. Thankfully I'm just using the APR ones for the bumper's center portion, and these support rods will actually go to my front splitter.

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Coolant hoses just because they were cheap lol.

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SPL for the win, such quality products as always. I need to get all of the other SPL goodies as well. Maybe switching to Moton at the end of next season, so unsure if I'll buy the SPL midlinks or wait until I go Moton (true coil) and just run the toe arms (most likely). Definitely need the front camber arms, my car is maxing out at -2 degrees of camber front right now.

A couple of weeks ago, I started gutting the car. Remove all of the rear interior bits, now left with this...

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Now all that is left is to cut out the rear speaker bar metal, remove all of the sound deadening, remove unnecessary wires, remove the front carpet, remove the headliner, remove all of the unnecessary wires up front/airbags/etc, and then paint the interior black. A lot of work to go, but should be good to go come April.

My inspiration to remove wires and clean up the rear interior by painting it up and filling some of the holes comes from ChrizTT's build thread. If you've not, take a look and check that out.

Here are some pictures for reference. Something worth mentioning is that I will be deleting the cubby areas that he has enclosed, I just have zero need for that metal as well since I'm caged and I would rather have easy access to pumps and less weight behind the seat.

https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a5...A923CBF65F.jpg

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Take a look at Monica's sweet behind. It's about to get chopped :confused:

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Now my focus is directed on waiting for the wing to show up so I can install that, then working on the front splitter and rear diffuser plus finishing off the rest of the interior. After that, I really just need to get new brake pads, tires, master and slave cylinder, and get the car corner balanced.

Some inspiration for front splitters:

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http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q...2/102_0792.jpg

https://my350z.com/forum/attachments...9_939949_n.jpg

https://my350z.com/forum/attachments..._4927947_n.jpg

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j3...pse082aa3e.jpg
I love this one, but don't think it's too possible due to my undershroud. Still working out how I'm going to do this. Thinking of running metal along the core support at the bottom and then attaching to that by adding rivnuts and drilling through the undershroud.

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Aside from that, I have turned my focus towards picking up a daily, so progress will be a bit slower than usual. Hoping that I can pick up a few freelance projects to fund this insanely expensive hobby. Looking to pick up a Nissan Armada, just waiting to get a ride to the dealership to pick it up and we will be good to go.

Oh, another awesome mention goes out to my parents. The got me a nice pair of Alpinestars SP shoes for Christmas, so that was sick.

Something else I really want to mention is that I've been working on a project with a few friends (why I've been so busy and unable to update the thread aside from work/freelance/senior capstone duties), I've been working on the website for our project, Grip Junkies. I've essentially spent the last week making the entire website, and I couldn't be more excited. It's basically just an outlet for all of us to share our track day experience as well as updates on our builds, and information that we use before track days/aero help, etc. Recently, I made a design for a helmet visor. This is a prototype cut, and was a bit too small, but I still think it looks dope. We're also working on gloves with BridgeMoto, and may be making Grip Junkies gloves. That's enough rambling on that topic though haha

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This post has a sad ending, heads up. At the same time, I find it kind of funny, saw it coming at some point, and it now gives me the opportunity to expand my knowledge and build a better car overall.

Also going to expand on this post a lot when I get home (around 8pm tonight, so check back for updates).

So lets start off with the fact that I had registered for the first track event of the year. Was slated to hit the tarmac on April 1-2. Had a lot of prep to do before getting the car ready for the event. Had to replace the slave cylinder and master cylinder since that is what broke at the last track event. So that was ordered as well as custom splitter support rods from Fully Torqued Racing. I plan on building an aggressive splitter as most of you have seen, pics of that are below. But 5" extension from the KBD Aero APT N-3 bumper is what I am building, so I shot for a 22" splitter rod to mount to the crash bar (going to mount the support rods further out towards the edges to provide support and prevent drooping of the splitter.

Still waiting on my Kognition wing, but that will be coming in soon. Should be able to get everything dialed and put together soon. Not that it matters, but I'll still be able to prep the car soon and get it all dialed for when the car is ready to go. Also picked up some Wilwood BP-40 pads and HOLY crap, these things are insane. Can't wait to finally get on the track and test them out. Additionally, I welded the door bars into the car and picked up a new quick release since I now had door bars and I wanted to be able to get in and out of the car much easier. The quick release I picked up was a Sparco weld-on unit as I wanted to go for something that wasn't ball and pin style (Works Bell, NRG, etc), and this option is much more sturdy and reliable. Also it looks great!

Door bar stuff. Huge thanks to my buddy Chuck for throwing these in for me and putting in the late night hours to work around my schedule and help me throw these in. Had to notch the bars using his bridgeport, then welded them in. Placement is perfect, and there is padding on top of the bars now. Going to paint them when I finish gutting the car (car is stored in a climate controlled garage and everything will get taken care of shortly!)
Attachment 457158

Quick release:
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How it looks on the OMP Velocita Superleggera

Going to gut my doors here soon (getting rid of the windows/window regulators and cutting out the wires, etc. Going to place some screws in that allow me to sit the windows in during rain sessions.)
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Also something that happened at the end of last season, my spherical top bearings went out on my HKS Hipermax IV SP coilovers, so I spoke with a friend and had some English translated over. Spoke with Yabe-San over in Japan about getting some replacements and got these mailed to me for free (seriously so kind of them and I couldn't be more thankful).
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Started to work on the front splitter with my buddy Alex (also making one for his 2015+ WRX). Got mine shaped out and drawn up. Have to do some sanding still to get everything tightened up and perfect (I'm a tad OCD). 5" extension from the bumper line, can't wait to get it all mounted up. This will just be temporary until I get some alumalite and make the splitter out of that.
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Here are some pics of the splitter rods that I'll be using and roughly where they will mount on both the crash beam as well as the splitter.
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Also decided that I want to put some more rubber under the car, so I'm looking at getting rid of my WedsSport SA72R's and switching to some black RPF1 in 18x10.5 et15. So car will have more tire for the increase in power that's going to come (keep reading).
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If you've read to this point, thank you! So this past weekend I took the car for a very spirited drive. Had some of the most fun I've ever had in the car, the point of scaring myself many times, but learned a lot about the car and how it was set up. On the way back, I drove the car as I normally do.. BOV started to sound more aggressive, wasn't sure what was going on but kept going. Chilled for a bit (5 minutes or so) and let the car relax. After letting the car relax, I hopped back on the road and hit some twisties until I caught up to traffic. Got to a passing section and dropped to 3rd to pass the car in front of me, was around 3k rpm and gave it gas. Got some wheelspin and went up to around 5k then dropped back to 3 really fast when it caught traction. After catching traction and getting about halfway past the car in front of me I got a loud backfire (no lie, it sounded awesome). Car sounded different so I pulled over to check it out. I thought I just blew a coupler off or something, but as soon as I popped the hood I heard this:

So it looks like the plans now are to start saving for a build. I plan on going low compression with a high rev head setup so that I can maximize my time on the track and beat on the car as hard as possible. Definitely stay tuned as I work on the car in the future as I have plenty of plans. Going to finish gutting the speaker bar setup soon, strip the sound deadening from the car, get the Kognition wing installed, finish the splitter install, custom side splitters, change bushings all around, CSC and CMC install (Wilwood), new wheels soon enough, and various other goodies.

Any idea what went?

Seems the noise is coming from passenger side. Either a valve or wrist pin. Haven't drained the oil just yet, so unsure if it was a wrist pin or not. Might drain the oil tonight, not sure. But I will definitely post up here when I found out what it was for sure.

Sorry to hear this bud. I know you were having issues with the ECU tune etc. But I have to give major cudos to SOHO for my tune on my car. I put 45k hard miles on that engine car. Same exact tune from when I left. Sebring in Mid(florida) June a year of Autox. That tune was strong. Maybe the motor as well. It could be power level. I was only at 375/375.

I know you love the Boost as well much as I did. And I do miss it. But you know what I don't miss is sitting track side or in a garage fixing things(engines, blown hose, etc). If you have an Unlimited budget or fully sponsored by an engine builder then go with the boost. But man NA is the way to go with these cars. This HR is a completely different animal. I don't know about swapping into a DE car, but look at it if you can. I think a member did it here. My Biggest concern now is how much gas I have in the car and tire psi...

Driving on track > Fixing trackside.

Let me know how everything works out bud. Best of Luck!

Chris

Wow this has come a longggg way ! sweet ride !