Wakefield Park Track Day - Friday August 12th!!

[asimovy]

This was a great day for me in the sw20.

The car's alignment has been changed, it was so much easier to control when it started to oversteer (ie: every 2nd corner =D )

Didn't manage to improve on my lap times at all, been doing 1:16s for the last three trackdays i've been to.

While nothing broke on the day or the drive home the gearbox gave out when i was at eastern creek yesterday, didn't come as too much of a surprise though and i got most of a days worth of time on the track. Very glad it didn't happen at wakefield!

[mideon_696]

Awesome trip. very big night friday...lol. even bigger for some!

[Draven]

there may be gopro footage of garth's 1:09.1 in my supra, as well as a couple of epic spins (including one which involved spinning, then stalling it while taking up almost the entire width of the main straight)

[wagonist]

Apart from the dead battery, I was very happy with my day (at least I now why it's idling erratically now). Able to just do lap after lap flat stick without any problems.
Had a bit of a scare in the arvo when I thought oil was leaking, but turned out just the coolant overflow & coolant that needs changing.
Definitely needs some swaybars & seats. And it probably be heavier next time due to fitting of a roll cage.

[RONA]

Awesome trip. very big night friday...lol. even bigger for some!

You know you had a big night when you wake up with your shoes still on.

[-GT-]

Rona you're alive!?! Good to hear - we weren't sure when we got up on saturday and you were gone.

That was an awesome track day, and a couple of fun nights either side. A wet, dirty and cold track early cleaned up pretty quickly and everybody seemed to run pretty well. A few failures around as have been mentioned such as the maloo - but the oil down wasn't so much his fault as the towie who pulled him back along about half the circuit!

The cressida etc boys had a fun day too by the looks of things - though they did need to get pulled out of the sand once or twice. Sorry i didn't get to say hi to everyone.

Thanks to the few of you who gave me a drive; Greg in particular given the state i gave it back in... sorry to hear about the tyre too, was that me?? And the brake fluid was more than just that one extra lap, i'd been fighting a failing pedal before the traffic cleared for those last couple of fast ones. Did you get it home ok?

Had fun in damo's beemer too - particularly when he told me the best he'd managed and i gave it back 2.2 secs quicker. He made a chunk of time up after that as i think he had something to chase but was still adrift. Discussed the racechrono traces over a beer yesterday so i think he'll find the rest in November.

My car was better with new rear hubs and a couple of other minor bits sorted - wasn't quite settled on the tyre pressures until late in the day so didn't really push it hard until the last couple of sessions. Felt good after those so happy with how the day went. Mick's new daily Boxster S wasn't supposed to see much track time and was just there to get a feel for it; 4 laps in and he's hammering it and sliding it around. Makes good video and there's also some great action when he's in front of me at the end of the day. Unfortunately it was blowing a large amount of steam when he left - fluid levels and temps all ok on the drive home and it cleared up but now misses at idle... fingers crossed he doesn't have 2 porsches with blown headgaskets in his garage! Either way i think we'll see the 924 turbo in November after all.

Was impressed with Rona's car and he did pretty well for his first day - interesting Justen you said firmer fronts as i was thinking firmer rears to keep the fronts on the ground driving out of corners. Probably depends a bit on driving style and hard to tell without actually driving it... probably getting a little further away from a road car too but he might be hooked now and back every time anyway..?

Brendan, some great shots in there, good work - I clearly need firmer springs though. Any chance you could send me big versions of any you have of my car, the boxster and the black commodore wagon? Oh and that white E46 bmw someone mentioned runs a tough 2JZ and a full cage - serious but was expecting a little more? Anyone hear times?

Youtube clips currently uploading; first off the rank is my effort in Greg's supra - i like.

Greg's JZA80 vvti Supra at Wakefield Park - YouTube

[JustenGT8]

Was impressed with Rona's car and he did pretty well for his first day - interesting Justen you said firmer fronts as i was thinking firmer rears to keep the fronts on the ground driving out of corners. Probably depends a bit on driving style and hard to tell without actually driving it... probably getting a little further away from a road car too but he might be hooked now and back every time anyway..?

Greg's JZA80 vvti Supra at Wakefield Park - YouTube

Yeah hard to tell exactly from a handfull of laps and from the passenger seat, but the rear felt fairly flat whereas the front dipped and rolled a lot more than i was expecting. Use double tapered springs and it'll stay streetable. I'd be looking for something like the Whiteline anti lift kits for the front to keep it planted out of corners?

As for my own suspension tweaks, they made the car more chuckable and had plenty of tail out fun (with toasted rear slicks to prove it )....but ultimately slower I'll give it a coupla sessions at the hill climb, as it may help with the understeer i usually suffer there? but suspect i'll be doing a midday tweak back to what i had.

[MR22ZZ]

sounds like swaybars would be a better fix than springs.

[RONA]

Spring rates are 10/6kg so certainly not what you'd call soft but it is certainly leaning on the tyres coming through the kink in the photos. Will probably go down the sway bar path first, all this is pretty much irrelevant until work settles down and I can get some time off to even drop it off somewhere to get work done. That and bulk funds for car stuff is allocated to the fabrication work that will be needed when the new turbo finally turns up, certainly going to be interesting if I get another 50-80awkw into it. That and the new wheels which I'm thinking will be used day to day and the enkei's as beatiful as they are will get something sticky put on them for track duties.

[JustenGT8]

Maybe, dunno what he has for a swaybar but it's rare to put a stiffer front swaybar on an AWD? A bit more front neg camber might have done the job too....up to Rona how far he wants to go.

[wagonist]

Pretty sure the bars are still stock & I agree with Justen about it being rare to upgrade the front one. The rear one is what stops the car from lifting off the inside front.

Not sure what you can do about the lifting/diving on the front. The rear mount for the front lower control arms is a vertical bolt through a rubber bush into a captive nut in the chassis. Though maybe a longer bolt with a spacer between the arm & body?

I think I'm going to have to invest in a bias valve or soemthing. Had big issues with locking up the rear (drum) brakes into the fishhook. I know discs would be better, but then I can't use the car for its intended purpose.

[Draven]

re: camber, pretty sure rona's camber is already pretty serious for a road car - 2.5 degrees iirc?

Garth: re the tyre, could have been you, I also came off at the same place, and also dropped 2 wheels off coming on to the back straight (I think it was that last one that ripped up the tyre)

car made it home fine. The pedal is definitely improved - far from ideal, but not dangerous... will be ordering some of the Castrol SRF stuff from the states before the next track outing

[Brendan]

throw me your email address garth and i'll across some pics

[benjamin]

Thanks so much for the day Garth, and sorry for turning up in a dirty S13.. My mate and I had an absolute blast, it was the first time we'd ever had the car out and it felt pretty good. Only problems we had were a short wire for the thermo fans and then losing two bolts from the dump pipe just before the end of the day. Should hopefully be back for the November day now

[trdee]

oi! i was the guy with the other white S13... two aw11 owners both there in their dirty nissans! didnt get a chance to say hi on the day..