Happy 100th track day in the E92 M3. What a journey it has been both personally and for the car. This weekend, we went to Chuckwalla with a fresh set of Pirelli DHF 305/645 tires and reliability improvements to the car:
- SSP clutches
- V3 MFactory carbon fiber driveshaft
- 15k/13k springs
- -2.0 degree splitter angle
-
bigjae1976 carbon undertray
I haven't been to Chuckwalla in a long time. It's quite a haul for me, being 9 hours of straight shot driving, but in this case, I had to pick up the car first which adds another 3 hours to the trip. I took a 4 day weekend off and I needed it. After arriving late Friday night, the next day we just settled into learning how the car behaved.
Unfortunately or fortunately, Bimmer Challenge is on a Sunday - but it's also a different configuration. I didn't do any homework or look at any one else's fast laps so I was just figuring stuff out on the fly again.
The car felt much better, a lot of the entry understeer is gone thanks to the springs. Upshifts were violent AF and the car had amazing power and traction in every corner. I did 2 sessions on the fresh Pirellis, then swapped to a scrub set. The scrub set is a set of DHB that I had taken off the car in January and actually had been too lazy to take them off the trailer.
The tires were literally sitting there in the rain. They were shaded by trees so don't have much direct sunlight, but I didn't do anything to protect them. They looked really grody too when I went to drive. They felt that way for about two laps as I worked the surface grime out of them. Brake pedal was hard as a rock too for those first two laps. Absolutely no temperature or grip in them.
But after the third lap they were magical again. Hah! They were only a second off the pace of the fresh DHF, but I was also more familiar with the track then too.
Sunday morning comes, and it's cloudy. I'm fresh thanks to the cabin and lots of sleep the night before, so I swap the DHF back on. After one pretty decent session, my heart sinks when I see a frigging metal fastening screw embedded deep into the tire.
Elie got a screwdriver out and we tried to back it out but heard immediate hissing. Crap! Keep in mind this is a 3 heat cycle tire and should last me a good 10 sessions. They also cost $700 a tire. Just great. So we screwed it all the way back in and hoped for the best. Refilled the tire and went out for the 2nd session. There wasn't any time to find a plug kit before the session started.
Since I had set the fastest time of the session, I was able to pregrid first. This is actually a new experience for me, since I have never been able to grid first ever since I moved up from intermediate to advanced. There's always been faster car/drivers. It's been a magical weekend though, and I've literally been first to grid in every session I ran (except for the very first one, and I was second).
I decided I would take it easy and the moment I felt the car get any sort of squirrely I would come in. Every lap I drove I pushed a little harder and started building a longer gap to P2. The car held every lap. After going through some back marker traffic I cleaned it up a little bit and set the best time of the day.
When I came in, the tire pressure was at 14 PSI! Unbelievable. I never felt it the entire time. The sidewall on DHF must be in credibly strong. I'm having the shop dismount and inspect it, and hopefully it's patchable, but man! What a hero.
I decided not to risk it in the 3rd and last timed session for Bimmer Challenge, so I swapped my super grody set of 8+ HC DHB on the front axle. Was a second slower, but so was most every one else. Some people improved but not enough to close the gap. Success!
As an amusing aside, I had forgotten that I had left a zip tie on the front splitter. Amazingly, through the entire day and 3 sessions of many laps, the zip tie didn't move an inch off the splitter. The power of Zebulon aero!
All in all, an amazingly successful weekend.
dogbone is the fastest I know driving our car at Chuckwalla so after the weekend was over I benchmarked my car against his to see where I could improve. I turns out, a lot! Could use a lot more bravery in corners, but the car's power is there. Only a touch slower on the straights which could come down to bravery and later breaking, or power/weight ratio. But only a hair.
Official weight so far, with me in the car and 3/4 tank of 101 fuel. Car is corner balanced with a passenger btw, so pay no heed to the imbalance. So much weight still on the front and I'm hoping that the next round of improvements we make will take that down further.
3439 lbs.
For Vegas, we will be swapping the doors and windows and I'm hoping we can get the dry sump in for more power. I have a fresh set of Pirellis on order, and if needed I'll get another set of Bridgestone RE71RS as a backup.
After seeing Bailey run with no mirrors I might do the same or pick up the Bimmerworld mirrors.