Hey whats up guys hows it going!? Haven't been on here in a while, or out to the track in a longer time! I just signed up for the NASA HPDE1 on Sunday, July 23rd, and thought I'd pop in here to see if anyone is interested in attending. Its about 155.00 for the day, if you don't have a membership, membership is 40.00 of the 155.00.

It sounds like a blast, so I thought i'd give it a shot, by the way, the track we'll be lapping is the PMI down in Pueblo. Hope to see some of you guys there!

For those of you interested a link is: http://www.nasarockymountain.com/

Sorry if this is a repost!

-Barry

 

I'll be out there in HPDE3. I'll look for you!

 

Hey Gary, I think I saw you out there, that was a good event, I didn't get a chance to come over and say hi! You were #36 right? Did you get a chance to talk to the other Z dude #350?
Anyhew, I definatly want to try to make it out to that circuit again soon, preferrably when its a bit cooler out though, although the heat wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Also the course was alot easier on brakes than I thought it'd be, atleast with my 215hp!

How was your day?

Edit: some pix posted here:
http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery...48&image_id=15

-Barry

 

Yes, I was #36. I had a great time; it was fun being out there with so many other types of cars, and the open passing in group 4 was not nearly as hair-raising as I had been worried that it might be.

The only downer for me was that I started with my tire pressures a bit too low in session 3, and as a result the car was just wallowing around for those laps. I also found in some of the other sessions that I've come upon the limits of my springs/shocks (Nismo S-Tune), and I'm going to be looking to upgrade those soon.

As always, Pueblo was a fun track to drive, and while it was warm, I'll agree that it didn't feel nearly as hot as I had been afraid that it might.

I didn't get a chance to talk to the other 350Z driver…every time I went over there, he wasn't around. That car looked good on track, though, from what I was able to see.

What were you driving, Barry? I'm sure I saw your car out there.

 

Hey, I was #8, and I was driving the Silver IS300 with dark colored wheels. I love being out there with so many types, esp fellow Japanese RWD's!. My tires were super low in the morning from sitting around sense november. I got some air from that guy with the trailored Porsche GT2, we parked right next to him. Kinda nice to have the whole kit-and-caboodle like they do, lol. The other guy in the Z was new to circuit, and he had a blast.

I found my Tein Flex to be adequate, but I also was hungry for some higher spring rates by the end of the day. Overall, it felt pretty good, just too soft, I'll determine how I should upgrade after a few more runs! What do you think you'd like to upgrade to from the S-Tune? R-tune, or something different all together?

 

OK; I remember admiring your wheels when I was watching for a while from outside of turn 7. What kind are those?

For suspension, I'll probably upgrade to something like a Koni Yellow/Eibach Prokit combo, or the Tokico matched spring and damper setup. Or maybe I'll just go all out and spring for the HKS RS coilovers…not likely, but I don't want to rule anything out at this point.

I'm not sure it's necessarily higher spring rates that I need, or maybe just a setup with different dampening characteristics that doesn't take so long to transfer weight during transitions. The S-Tune has pretty high max spring rates, but I think that it's mild drop, combined with what appear to be some relatively soft shocks and low initial rate on the progressive springs, give a good ride on the street and decent handling on the mountain roads, but less-than-ideal characterstics when pushed harder at the track.

It's nice to have so many upgrade choices, but it sure doesn't make it any easier to find the right one! And for every good review I find online, I find another one that sounds a little iffy. The RS setup is the only one with no bad reviews, but of course it costs twice what the others do!

 

thanks, my wheels are from a division of Manaray Sport, called A.Tech. the model is "Final Speed" I'm running 17x7 F and 17x8 R.

My car is lowered on Tein Flex(double height adjustment coilover), all in all a great setup, just a bit on the soft side, I am experiencing a similar phenomenon as you, it just takes a while to transition, making the higher-speed corners not as fun as the low-speed corner(s) on that track (I guess Turn 7 is the only real 2nd gear corner!) My setup was great on 2nd creek, but here a little stiffer would feel better!

Its hard to determine a good suspension setup, esp when its your DD too! My Flex I like alot, my car is 3200lbs, and I'm using a 10/8kg f/r combo (standard for Flex for IS300). I'm going to try upgrading to a 14/10kg setup f/r though. It sounds like a lot, but, its mostly in the front, so I think the overall characteristic of the car will not change, but its reaction time should. Depending on what Tein says, i might need to get my shocks revalved to handle the spring rates, so we'll see.

Do you have sways already?

-B

 

Wow, those will be some pretty high rate springs; I suspect you're right, and Tein will recommend some revalving on those shocks. Let us know what you find with that.

T7 at PMI is the only obvious second gear turn, although I've tried taking T4 in second, and it seems as though I do get to a higher speed by the entrance of T5 when doing this...you've just got to be quick on the downshift in the short braking zone for 4, and ready to shift up to third gear right around the track-out point. The Z has enough torque that it can pull out of there in third, though, so it would really take some good sector times to be sure of how much time is gained/lost by taking that in which gear.

For sways I'm running the 350Evo setup (3-way adjustable front and rear bars developed by a Grand Am Cup team that used to run the 350Z) set at medium up front and stiff in the rear. I'm tried full stiff in the front (with the rears also at full stiff), and found that while that gave me much quicker steering response, the car did understeer once it had taken a set in the turn. A couple things that I might try, though, now that I'm running much wider tires is to run stiff in the front again and see how that goes (although it absolutely destroyed my front tires when I ran it that way at Second Creek), and also going back to medium in the rear, with the fronts at medium, and see if that doesn't make the car a bit less tail-happy.

 

With my gearing T4 was always a 3rd gear corner. Another thing about this course, is a higher final gear ratio would help me out alot! I got a 3.73 stock, but I'm thinking a 4.1 or 4.3 would be awesome. (I'm rarely on the hwy).

I'm inquiring to Tein about my coilovers today, so hopefully I'll hear something back soon. A spring change is relativley cheap, 200-ish. thats not too bad. Lest it blows my dampers up, lol.

Swaybars can be a tricky business, if you go too stiff its a pain to fine tune them coz the base stiffness is so severe (I learned this on my 240), on my IS I picked some fairly mild sways so I could do more experimenting with springing.

What kinda rims/tires are you running? Looked like SSR comps!
I am running Advan Neova AD07 225F 235R 17's.

 

Those wheels are Volk LE-37T, 18 * 8.5 +22 in the front, and 18 * 9.5 +22 in the back, running Avon's Tech M500 street tire.

I thought about going with the SSR Comps, but they didn't make them in quite the exact size I wanted, and I've had friends bend them a little easier than I'd like to see on a wheel that expensive.