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Trackaholic's GT350 Experience

TDC

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Pics and write-up were great, Thanks for sharing.

All these pics are beginning to make yellow a favorite color for this car.

So my concern over noise appears to be confirmed and I'm surprised quiet mode still registered a 89dB. I didn't want to remove the resonators because of noise but with loud mode at 97dB and Lime Rock sound limits of 86dB on most days pretty much means I'm limited to those days when sound limits are raised. Resonator delete mod is back on the table.
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CSL

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Thanks for the write up. Tire wear looks pretty even across the tread despite not having it aligned yet; I'm pleasantly surprised to see this. Do both fronts look like that?
 

drainey

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love the info. Laguna Seca with my GT 350 is on my must list. What are using for the camera and data info? Love the corkscrew into Rainey corner, have spent alot of races at that area of the track back to the orig trans am and can am days.

Keep up the post
 

FPCV8YO

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What suspension setting were you using? Looks like a lot of squat in the screw.
 
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Trackaholic

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Corkscrew and Rainey curve are my favorite. The slightly off-camber exit of Rainey is really fun because you can really feel the car searching for grip.

For these videos I am using my iPhone with the Harry's Lap Timer app. It uses the phone GPS, accelerometers, and cameras to record the lap time and sync the video to the data. It's not the most accurate system, but is pretty quick and easy to use, which is necessary for me. You can see in some of the photos that I have a go-pro mounted, but I can't get good sound from that and didn't turn it on. In the future I will get video from that as well.

Tire wear looked good to me as well, and was relatively even on both front tires. That photo shows the outside front, and therefore represents the worst case wear.

-T
 

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Stuntman

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Youre braking at ~half of the ability of the car. Try braking later with more pressure.
 
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Trackaholic

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What suspension setting were you using? Looks like a lot of squat in the screw.
I was using normal mode for sound purposes, then setting steering and shocks to "sport".

Youre braking at ~half of the ability of the car. Try braking later with more pressure.
Yeah, the brakes are softer and require more pressure than what I am used to. Definitely need to get recalibrated.

-T
 

fuhrius

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questions / comments if you don't mind:

great to see the car at LS. it's such an amazing track..and your car looks fantastic. I also like the idea of the thread...think I'll do one too.
I'll be out on 3/10 for my first day in the car...I'm having a cage built in the car and basic safety setup but I'll be taking it really easy...it's a 92db day so that looks like it's going to be a problem. Only other initial mods will be similar (frpp catch cans and hood struts). I suspect camber plates will be right behind that but I will have the car aligned for maximum front camber before going. (the shop that's building my cage - TC Designs - also does great alignment work)

I fully understand the desire to get acquainted with the car so I understand not pushing it hard.
I've done some hard-stop / brake-bedding on the street and found 1.23g under braking so these cars do have some pretty crazy stopping power.

Nice setup for 9...many people try to enter from full track right which, as you seem to know, is a bad choice...the track loses a lot of camber about 2 car widths from track right on entry. 8b: I can hear - in the video - the splitter scraping. Something you might want to try is to exit 8b 1-1 1/2 car widths from track left (don't track out all the way out). the down-slope of 8b is less dramatic there so you're less likely to scrape...and it won't hinder your exit speed. You might also try using the 'high HP' car line through 2 by swinging wider at entry and only 'apex-ing' the second apex of the line you were using. in your vids, you can see cars like the Viper using that line. In your Z, I suspect you'd be quicker with the double-apex line you were using...it's the same way I drove 2 in my boxster or in the lower-power formula cars I've driven there. It also allows for a 'flatter' braking zone that'll give you more confidence braking later / harder into 2 and still allows enough for some nice trail-braking to get the car rotated.
Last note: watching you accelerometer, I'd encourage you to apply some 'maintenance throttle' through 6. The magnaride will do wonders in keeping the car stable through there even without (it was remarkable to me, how composed the car was through 6 when I drove it at the track tour...most impressive part to me that day)...but I noted it in the video from the Z too. It's not a matter of speed...though you will be quicker through there...it's a matter of safety. 6 bites more people at LS than just about anywhere else because they get their braking right (before the crest) but then they coast through 6. 6 has a nasty dip and if you're not weighting down the rear with some throttle, the car compresses and then has a big rebound...while you still have some steering angle in the car, and it spins cars like a top. Most people who lose it in 6 got to the inside, not the outside, for this reason.

Q: how are you mounting your iPhone?
 
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mattlqx

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I was using normal mode for sound purposes, then setting steering and shocks to "sport".
FWIW, I noticed way too much intervention from the stability program even in Sport. Setting drive mode to Track and then hitting the exhaust toggle to Normal is probably your best bet. I think that even gives you a different suspension tune than using the suspension toggle itself from normal or sport mode. At least it has a different graphic in the status.

Yeah, the brakes are softer and require more pressure than what I am used to. Definitely need to get recalibrated.

-T
o_O It's quite the opposite for me coming from the Boss. I practically had to step on the brake pedal at times. GT350 is grabby right off the bat.
 

fuhrius

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also, re: rev-matching - the stock pedal setup gives me trouble so I installed a set of Sullivan Racing Pedals (as I've done in all my recent performance cars) and it makes a world of difference.
 

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mattlqx

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Did the car feel understeery in turn 2 at all? My Boss understeered like a mad man with stock alignment and R compounds (was a little better with normal street tires) until I got camber plates.

Here's my video from last time I was at LS (with the plates).

[ame]

I had tubular LCAs with the relocation brackets set too far down so the back end was pretty loose. Wish I had figured that one out sooner.
 
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Trackaholic

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questions / comments if you don't mind:

great to see the car at LS. it's such an amazing track..and your car looks fantastic. I also like the idea of the thread...think I'll do one too.
I'll be out on 3/10 for my first day in the car...I'm having a cage built in the car and basic safety setup but I'll be taking it really easy...it's a 92db day so that looks like it's going to be a problem. Only other initial mods will be similar (frpp catch cans and hood struts). I suspect camber plates will be right behind that but I will have the car aligned for maximum front camber before going. (the shop that's building my cage - TC Designs - also does great alignment work)

I fully understand the desire to get acquainted with the car so I understand not pushing it hard.
I've done some hard-stop / brake-bedding on the street and found 1.23g under braking so these cars do have some pretty crazy stopping power.

Nice setup for 9...many people try to enter from full track right which, as you seem to know, is a bad choice...the track loses a lot of camber about 2 car widths from track right on entry. 8b: I can hear - in the video - the splitter scraping. Something you might want to try is to exit 8b 1-1 1/2 car widths from track left (don't track out all the way out). the down-slope of 8b is less dramatic there so you're less likely to scrape...and it won't hinder your exit speed. You might also try using the 'high HP' car line through 2 by swinging wider at entry and only 'apex-ing' the second apex of the line you were using. in your vids, you can see cars like the Viper using that line. In your Z, I suspect you'd be quicker with the double-apex line you were using...it's the same way I drove 2 in my boxster or in the lower-power formula cars I've driven there. It also allows for a 'flatter' braking zone that'll give you more confidence braking later / harder into 2 and still allows enough for some nice trail-braking to get the car rotated.
Last note: watching you accelerometer, I'd encourage you to apply some 'maintenance throttle' through 6. The magnaride will do wonders in keeping the car stable through there even without (it was remarkable to me, how composed the car was through 6 when I drove it at the track tour...most impressive part to me that day)...but I noted it in the video from the Z too. It's not a matter of speed...though you will be quicker through there...it's a matter of safety. 6 bites more people at LS than just about anywhere else because they get their braking right (before the crest) but then they coast through 6. 6 has a nasty dip and if you're not weighting down the rear with some throttle, the car compresses and then has a big rebound...while you still have some steering angle in the car, and it spins cars like a top. Most people who lose it in 6 got to the inside, not the outside, for this reason.

Q: how are you mounting your iPhone?
Great points!

It's funny you mention turn 6. I feel as though I am braking early and immediately back on the throttle to settle the rear as you suggest to do. When my Z was very new (maybe 7000 miles or so), I had the exact crash you mention on turn 6. I braked a little late, got nervous and didn't get back on the gas, and the rear came loose from the dip, stepping out and sending me scraping along the tires on the inside. I am therefore pretty early on the gas now, but it sounds like I can go even earlier.

I think the wider entry and later apex on 8b will work well. The one time I didn't scrape was when I went wider through there.

I've done the wide entry on T2 as well on the Z (but haven't tried it on the GT350), and wasn't really able to get a noticeable improvement in feel. My Z pushes more in T2 than the GT350, and the Z it didn't seem to care what line I took, it was just unhappy. The GT350 felt pretty good with the line I had, but I agree that some experimentation there would be useful. I do think I that even if I stay close to the first apex, I should be hitting it later, so I don't need to rotate so much between the first and second. Still, I was pretty happy with how the car felt in that corner. Further experimentation is definitely required.

Regarding sound, two of my friends have the right-angle exhaust attachments, and a racer guy said those are good for about a 5 db reduction. Then, if you track out and come back across to the inside of the track, you might gain another 2 db due to increasing the distance to the mic. I haven't yet figured out a good way to mount an exhaust adapter, but that might be something to look into. There was a 911 race car that had an awesome setup, with two pipes leaving the muffler, and in each pipe were two straight mufflers. So he had a total of four mufflers on an external mount to make the car pass. It was an impressively designed piece. I've also heard of some people rigging up their exhaust valves to a GPS system, so they would close only when in the vicinity of the sound booth and remain open on the rest of the track. That's a bit more than I am willing to do.

The iphone is mounted with some cheap windshield suction cup mount that I found at Fry's at the last minute. Will probably get a RAM mount for better stability. They seem to be well designed.

Thanks for all the thoughts. Definitely some things to think about on future visits.

One last thing:
Today I emptied the UPR catch can. I had installed it shortly before the track day, I think last weekend. There were maybe a couple table spoons in there so it was definitely catching something.

Attached is a photo of the catch can, and also some of my Z after the T6 incident described above.

-T
IMG_1062_small.jpg
DSCN0803_small.jpg
DSCN0811_small.jpg
 

fuhrius

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ouch. I won't post the pics of my boxster after my wide exit of T4 that sent me into the inside tire wall. it was pretty ugly looking.
 
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CoastHighway

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It was a great laguna day. I only crossed your path once in the second session, while you were working through your sound issue. That 911 you mentioned and I were just behind the corvette that lost oil right before lunch. It puffed some smoke, so we didn't get surprised.
 
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Trackaholic

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It was a great laguna day. I only crossed your path once in the second session, while you were working through your sound issue. That 911 you mentioned and I were just behind the corvette that lost oil right before lunch. It puffed some smoke, so we didn't get surprised.
I think you guys were coming up on me when that happened. I was right behind him.

I wanted to stop by and check out your car, but never found the time. Looked like you were moving pretty well out there.

-T
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