Official "my latest HPDE experience" thread.

[westopher]

I believe its around 1.8 front. Rear should be around the same. Fucking blitzkrieg forgot to give me an alignment spec sheet when I got it done. From the sounds of other e36 guys around 2.8-3 front works well with no toe for a street driven e36 with occasional track/autox use. I believe the rears are fine where they are at right now.

[Traum]

Again, I will stress that I don't know anything about Bimmers, but I would think that while 2.8 - 3° worth of camber should work very well at the track and autox, it would also result in noticeable camber wear if you drive it regularly on the street. One way to get around that is to track/autox the car regularly to even things out.

Also, as far as balance is concerned, be mindful of the fact that even though your rear camber setting seems to work well now, if you fiddle with the front, it will change the balance of the car. For example, if you bump your front camber up to 2.5° while keeping the rear camber the same, you will get more front end grip in the turns, but now your rear will feel more loose because there hasn't been any corresponding grip increase in the back.

[westopher]

The car is a bit understeery as is right now. Which I think is actually fairly beneficial from a learning perspective. I'm not concerned about tire wear really as the car will get driven about 6-7k per year, so the tires could easily last me 3 summers, which is plenty. I'll do some studying and figure out what my best plan is. I think I will need to buy some camber plates.

[white rocket]

Originally Posted by westopher

The car is a bit understeery as is right now. Which I think is actually fairly beneficial from a learning perspective.

You couldn't be more right, especially with a RWD platform. That understeer forgiveness will help you get to the limit of your car comfortably without the risk of a spin(well, there's always that risk I suppose).

You mentioned turn 2/holyfuckthere'sthewall. I almost did a 360 on turn 2 a couple years ago. Cold r-comps are ballz. It was mid-corner so no wall hitting fear but it was quite the ride . Lots of cheering from the bleacher area. lol!

[R. Mutt]

Thanks for posting. This certainly helps give some perspective. I really want to hit a track day just need to sort my clutch first...really want to get out there and have some fun. AutoX is good and all but I feel like I barely get to stretch my legs in terms of all out speed and cornering potential. This year I have other financial priorities but next year I will be hitting the track days in full force as long as I can get out of work.

Did you swap out brake fluid for Mission? I understand it can be particularly hard on brakes and it's recommended to run something like the Motul RBF600 at minimum...but really more like the 660 which will hold up better to repeated laps.

[westopher]

I just used fresh ATE typ 200 and had no problems. The motul rbf600 is higher boiling point so might as well go with that though. Really dependent on how hard your car is on brakes and how your brake cooling is. I didn't feel like I was experiencing any fade with stock pads and better fluid. Upgrading my pads next though as I ate through quite a bit of them.

[Traum]

A lot of people consider autox to provide too little seat time, and factually speaking, they are correct. You are looking at 6 - 10 minute's worth of driving over the course of the entire day, and each run is over so quickly that novices may not have time to relish the experience before it is all over.

One aspect of track day / lapping that I would like to point out is, it is absolutely not about all out speed and cornering potential. The venue for that is road racing, and even then, traffic and competitors often get in the way of that. At the track days, I generally encourage people to drive at somewhere between 7/10 to 8/10, or 9/10 if you are experienced and has the preferred (safety) equipment for it. It is entertainment, not competition. When a competitive attitude is adopted, it is easy for mishaps to take place. For the most part, those concrete barriers at Mission are not very forgiving...

Mission is very hard on a car's braking system. One of the quickest brake failures that I know of is a nicely modified FD Civic with Spoon BBK frying his piston seals in < 8 mins of lapping. Generally speaking, the bigger the horsepower, the harder Mission is on your brakes. But the most important thing to remember is that the driver should always be in control. There are easy measures that the driver can adopt to mitigate the intense brake heat issues, and it won't necessarily slow you down all that much.

1) Do not repeatedly utilize 100% of your car's braking performance. Modern brakes on production cars can take a bit of abuse at 100% of what they are capable of, but if you do that repeatedly, it can very quickly fail, as in the case of the modified FD Civic. If you back off a bit and only tap into ~95% of its maximum braking capabilities, however, you could be running at nearly that capacity for well over 2/3 of your 20-30 min session. Depending on the car, this could mean braking at the #4 brake marker at slightly reduced pedal pressure instead of holding off maximum braking until the #2 marker, or it could mean you ease off the gas a little ways before you arrive at brake marker #5.

2) Alternate between aggressive laps and cruising laps. This is especially important at Mission because all the straightaways require hard braking near the end. (Many other tracks in PNW are not like that.) This requirement means you brakes won't really have the time they want to cool themselves off, and you could fry your pads, your fluids, or other parts of your braking system very quickly. By alternating between aggressive laps and cruising laps (I typically alternate between 2 of each.), you give your brakes a chance to cool off, and the system will last much longer.

For myself, I have only been using DOT 5.1 fluids at Mission, and for the most part, that has been enough for my low powered vehicle. Ultimately, however, the braking should completely fall under the driver's control. I've seen cars doing lap after lap on DOT 3 fluids without any issues at Mission, and I've seen cars boiling their fluids despite using RBF 660. To make it work at Mission, I think you simply have to be mindful of what the car is capable of, and not exceed that capability.

[westopher]

Great advice and post^

[dared3vil0]

^ Such awesome info. Thanks Traum!

[immorality]

Thanks Westopher & Traum. I've done a little bit of autocross over the last couple of years, but haven't done a track day yet. The more I read about it, the more intrigued I get, and I might have to do it this year.

[R. Mutt]

I suppose my choice of words was poor to begin with. I have no interest in going balls to the wall or being the fastest guy out there....I simply want to enjoy my car and sometimes find it frustrating to do so on a tightly set up Autocross layout that, quite often, utilizes only 1st and 2nd gear...and this is with a close ratio gearbox to boot. It would be nice to use 3rd and even 4th on a straightaway and also take larger radius turns...that's all. I know you weren't being specific to my statement but rather providing information that We can all heed. I know I will when the time comes. Cheers.

[Iron Chef]

I think auto cross is a good place to start before jumping into full on track days.
I find that with auto cross you really learn the technical side of car control at 10/10ths driving. Even thought the time on track is short , you are driving on the limit all the time. You train yourself mentally to look ahead , plan your lines and anticipate at a much faster rate.

This makes your transition into track days much easier because everything on a track goes at a much slower pace. I find when I'm on the limit at the track and things start to go a little sideways it's a natural reaction to correct it. The way my car is set up , it over steers a lot and it's just muscle memory to recover , I feel that's is in a large part due to auto x experience.

I have seen more people struggle with track days > auto x then vice versa. I always recommend getting a season of auto x in first before jumping into track days

Even though auto x is a great tool for learning your skill set , it gets old quick. I like putting my car through her paces, running through the gears shifting at redline with you windows open and your engine just howling off the concrete walls , heel toe downshifting from 5-2nd ,
Trail braking into a corner at 120km, reeling in the guy in front of you that you've been working on for the last couple of laps till finally he gives up and waves you by, you can't get those things
At auto x.

[trollguy]

true story. autoxers are fast track day drivers.. and track day drivers are slow autoxers!

i'm the exception though, slow for both :

[boatcaptain]

after reading this thread. i signed up for pca track day

[freakshow]

I was there too.. Will upload the rest of my pictures tonight..

Here is one of me and two friends.. both overtaking me



and some solo shots..

[westopher]

I wanted to take a couple photos of your car, but seemed to just never come across it when I had my camera out. Looking good out there.

[threezero]

Originally Posted by Iron Chef

I think auto cross is a good place to start before jumping into full on track days.
I find that with auto cross you really learn the technical side of car control at 10/10ths driving. Even thought the time on track is short , you are driving on the limit all the time. You train yourself mentally to look ahead , plan your lines and anticipate at a much faster rate.

This makes your transition into track days much easier because everything on a track goes at a much slower pace. I find when I'm on the limit at the track and things start to go a little sideways it's a natural reaction to correct it. The way my car is set up , it over steers a lot and it's just muscle memory to recover , I feel that's is in a large part due to auto x experience.

I have seen more people struggle with track days > auto x then vice versa. I always recommend getting a season of auto x in first before jumping into track days

Even though auto x is a great tool for learning your skill set , it gets old quick. I like putting my car through her paces, running through the gears shifting at redline with you windows open and your engine just howling off the concrete walls , heel toe downshifting from 5-2nd ,
Trail braking into a corner at 120km, reeling in the guy in front of you that you've been working on for the last couple of laps till finally he gives up and waves you by, you can't get those things
At auto x.

thanks for this post. reinforced my plan to get at least a season or 2 of autos in before even trying a track day.

besides at 50$ a pop i can go to a lot more autox day than track days :hot baby:

and autox has me focus more on improving myself rather than my car. as is my bone stock car is pretty competitive, the only thing holding it back is myself. spending my money on mods will actually slow my learning and put me in a harder class.the way i see it its a win win situation for my wallet

[westopher]

Just got back from the Proformance driving school at pacific raceways. What a day. Sunny weather followed by HEAVY rain in our last track session to really mix it up. The course is very hands on and very much about technique. It starts off a little slow for some with some crash avoidance exercises, but speeds up throughout the day.

Met a few nice guys from Van but not sure if they are on here. They had a MINT r32 gtr, a black Mcoupe and an STi. As always a few porsches were there, someone crashed the schools lotus ass first into the trees at turn 5b(?) after the rain hit.

Pacific raceways is much more intimidating than mission, but still, it felt very safe out there and I recommend it to anyone whos interested in getting into track days, and I especially recommend it to people that are really nervous about jumping in head first. It really does a great job of building you up in increments. Its not cheap, but if you have some cash to spend and really plan on getting into track days its a good start to building technique and also first step to acquiring an SCCA solo license. I didn't take many pics, as there was really no time, but I'll toss some iPotato pics up later.

[dared3vil0]

Auto-X Sunday?

[westopher]

I don't think I'm gonna make it. Spending too much time with car and not enough with wife haha.

[dared3vil0]

Convince her to go to your next track day!

[Traum]

Originally Posted by westopher

Just got back from the Proformance driving school at pacific raceways. What a day. Sunny weather followed by HEAVY rain in our last track session to really mix it up. The course is very hands on and very much about technique. It starts off a little slow for some with some crash avoidance exercises, but speeds up throughout the day.

Good to hear that you had a fun day at PR. How did you like the newly paved T7 through T9? I have yet to try that out myself since the repaving, and I've been dying to do so since seeing all that nice fresh asphalt on their Facebook page. Prior to the repaving, T8 used to be quite slippery, but will at the same time scallop my tires...

Met a few nice guys from Van but not sure if they are on here. They had a MINT r32 gtr, a black Mcoupe and an STi. As always a few porsches were there, someone crashed the schools lotus ass first into the trees at turn 5b(?) after the rain hit.

As much as a lot of people absolutely rave about the Ridge, PR will always have a special place in my heart because the track just works so well with my car's gearing. That back stretch after T3b through T6 is my favourite section of the track. At the same time, it is also probably the trickiest section to get right, and the easiest to screw up, especially when there is even just a hint of dampness on the ground. As you already know, the really unfortunate thing with PR is, if you make a mistake on the track, it is not a forgiving track at all. I still wouldn't call it dangerous, but the terrain and the limited runoffs will just do some costly damages to your car if you screw up, much like what you saw today.

ProFormance is certainly not cheap, but Don and his crew do a spectacular job on both the organizing and instructing parts of their school. You really can't go wrong signing up with these guys.

[dared3vil0]

Pics of the wrecked lotus?

[trollguy]

Originally Posted by Traum

Good to hear that you had a fun day at PR. How did you like the newly paved T7 through T9? I have yet to try that out myself since the repaving, and I've been dying to do so since seeing all that nice fresh asphalt on their Facebook page. Prior to the repaving, T8 used to be quite slippery, but will at the same time scallop my tires...


As much as a lot of people absolutely rave about the Ridge, PR will always have a special place in my heart because the track just works so well with my car's gearing. That back stretch after T3b through T6 is my favourite section of the track. At the same time, it is also probably the trickiest section to get right, and the easiest to screw up, especially when there is even just a hint of dampness on the ground. As you already know, the really unfortunate thing with PR is, if you make a mistake on the track, it is not a forgiving track at all. I still wouldn't call it dangerous, but the terrain and the limited runoffs will just do some costly damages to your car if you screw up, much like what you saw today.
.

5a/b is my personal fav for that track..

[hud 91gt]

Initial Consultation with Naturopath yesterday. $570. How I feel

Track day event ~$500. How I would feel?

Looks like fun, I can't see myself getting out there this year, but maybe a couple more auto x in the mean time.