Track Report

"No concrete walls this time"
and
"I love upgraded anti-sway bars!"

My Car:

Relevant Modifications


Random Babbling:

Anti-sway Bars:
I said it above, and I'll say it again: "I love upgraded anti-sway bars!" This was my first track event since upgrading the stock bars last fall. I really hadn't had a chance to test out the theoretically-better handling on the street - due to legal and safety issues - since installing them last fall/winter. I noticed a significant reduction in body roll and the car seemed to rotate a little better, but the rotation was hard to gauge without being able to really toss the car around... which I'm not going to do on the street. BUT, I will do that on the track... and I did... over... and over... and over, to my heart's utter delight. The car really doesn't lean much in the corners anymore (at least compared to the stock suspension) and is much more controllable at the edge of traction. The car is much more neutral at all speeds I encountered (< 55mph) at the school. The handling oval was especially telling as I could correct slight oversteer through mild throttle application and the car did not plow at all when I slightly overcooked the corners occasionally. In fact, the ONLY time the car plowed at all during the day, was at the 15mph hairpin turnarounds at the ends of the slalom stations. And even then, if the car started to understeer, I could ease up on the steering input and either maintain of slightly reduce the throttle to make the car would stop plowing and do what I wanted it to. I suppose some of this could be attributed to my being a better driver since I last hit the track (I'm so punny), but I don't think I'm gonna claim that. One last thing that I noticed to be a big difference with the upgraded sway bars is the transition between sticking and sliding. It used to be a rather abrupt change, often associated with shaking/vibration as the tires alternated between having grip and not having grip. Now, it's a much smoother, more gradual change, and the car feels much more predictable and controllable at the edge of traction. I'll be very curious to see if I have the same experience in the dry as I did in the wet on this particular day.

Tire Pressure:
 So I tried a couple of new things this year... one of which was that I left my tire pressures close to my normal street pressures (as indicated by the owner's manual for high-speed driving: 32F:29R +7F, +4R) in an attempt to see if this would give me better traction. Since it was raining and all the shoe polish washed off my tires before it could be scrubbed off by driving, I was unable to check if my tires were getting an appropriate amount of roll-over. However, based on the overall wear for the day, I suspect that my tire pressure was either fine or maybe a little high.

Gauges:
My new Defi-link Display Unit was an excellent addition to the car. Its peak hold features were very useful for monitoring how the car was performing, and also for how I was improving (peak speed). The digital speed readout was generally visible in the video footage, so you can easily see if I was faster during one session vs. another. My oil temps hit 110C, compared to the highest I've seen them on the street (3rd gear WOT up a hill) of 105C. However, water temps peaked at 98C, so I don't think I had any cooling issues. EGTs were well under control, as they stayed below 650C in the downpipe (right after each turbo), probably due to the 50F ambient temperature and the water/alcohol injection. Oil pressure was at or above 1.1kg/cm^2 at all times, even at idle and when oil temps approached 110C.

Weather:
As is typical for western Washington in the early spring, the weather was a mess. It was sunny, cloudy, windy, misting, raining, pouring, and hailing at various points during the day. Yes, I said hailing. Only for about 5 minutes, but I can say that I was autocrossing in HAIL. That's just cool. The track never really dried out during the day, so it was at least wet, with there often being standing water on the track. I never hydroplaned though, even with 245 width tires. The water made things interesting by lowering the amount of available traction and allowing you to play with your car "at the edge" at lower (read: safer) speeds. The copious amounts of water also helped with brake cooling, so I had zero brake issues.

Power Delivery:
For once, I was actually very happy with this setup. I'm putting down somewhere between 260awhp and 280awhp (probably 360ish at the crank) and there really isn't significant turbo lag in the RPM range used in the school (2500-6500 in 2nd gear). Actually, I rarely had the car floored as it was not necessary. Modulating the throttle to flirt with the edge of traction was very manageable, even with boost being involved. If autocross were all I did at the track, I'd pretty much say that more power would be superfluous, unless dry traction were to provide gobs more traction and allow for crazy-higher speeds... which in my past experience, it does not. I imagine I'll want more power once I venture out to road courses, but for now, what I have seems more than adequate. ... did I just say that? Oh well, we all have our moments of insanity :-)

Random Comments:
I went through 6 gallons of gas and 0.66 gallons of Water/Alcohol in 22 total miles at the track. And yeah, the alcohol went in the ENGINE, not in me... you can only mix Gran Turismo driving with alcohol, not real driving :-)

For more drill-station-specific comments and reviews, please see the drill station section.





All this stuff is ©1999-2004 Erik Gross
This website brought to you by picture_page, and the letter 4.

A good buddy of mine put it well: "Unauthorized duplication, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing. And it could be bad for the pixels." As I've put a lot of time and effort into creating this webpage and website, I would prefer that you not redistribute, sell, or claim as yours any of the content of this site. I know I can't stop you if that's what you're going to do, but I'm asking nicely. If you would like to publish some of the content of this site in your own work (printed, electronic, or otherwise), please e-mail me and we can work something out.
 
Disclaimer
Feedback



Last Modified Fri May 23 2003 19:46:42 PDT