Had a great weekend at Buttonwillow and at Willow Springs. Was great to meet some of you guys for the first time (surewin) and see some of you again (roastbeef).
Seems that I need to have an issue every time I head down to LA! My tires were unbalanced before the trip even begun and I had to rotate the driver side front tire to the rear because it was vibrating the steering column like crazy. Fortunately the tire shop at Buttonwillow was open and I got all tires rebalanced (3 of them needed it, only 1 was good)
Also, I hit some tread on the road on the trip down. I didn't notice anything wrong until Sunday. My engine temperatures were through the roof on Saturday, which I attributed to being stuck in traffic at high RPM. It turns out that the underbelly of my car had been ripped open, basically the front half of part #1 in this diagram was missing:
http://www.getbmwparts.com/parts/201...agramCallOut=3
It didn't impact my driving at all in Buttonwillow other than seemingly punishing me with high engine temperatures. This was pretty crippling, because it advances your max RPM down from 8000+ RPM to about 5-6000 RPM. It wasn't even that hot out, around 83 degrees when it happened. My last trip here, it was much hotter, and it wasn't causing me grief.
At Willow Springs though, it had become completely unhinged at the much higher sustained speeds and was rattling around like crazy. It caused me to be black flagged twice and told my splitter was falling off. Well, my pretend splitter at least, haha.
I tried taping the entire enclosure closed with masking tape, which worked for about 4-5 laps before it got ripped up to shreds:
Cue black flag. Went to the store, and picked up some wider painter's tape thinking it would work better than the 3M automotive masking tape I had with me. Same result - worked for 4-5 laps before got black flagged again. This time I put the car on jack stands and unbolted the entire damn thing off. No more problems.
No engine problems here either, the much higher speeds must have done the trick, and the traffic was great. Got timely point bys at Willow Springs (did not happen with regularity at Buttonwillow).
Best times were:
2:06.55 at Buttonwillow CW13
1:38.62 at Willow Springs
Leaving a lot on the table. After watching Jack Olsen's guide on youtube to Willow Springs, I improved my line through all turns and easily dropped a second from my time there. Thanks Jack!
All that time there corded my driver's side front tire though - I should have rotated them between sessions when I noticed the outer edge was getting eaten up. Was being lazy though and didn't want to jack the car again:
My next mod will be camber plates, heh.