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08-10-2015, 07:15 PM | #23 |
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Ah, I forgot to mention in my original post that EAS had found that my engine mounts were torn. They replaced all the rubber belts in the engine bay right before I was delivering the car to Racewerkz for the cage. While doing the work, they found the torn mounts. One of them was torn quite badly.
Since Racewerkz was going to have the car up on a lift for several weeks, it was easier to have them change the mounts. I chose to go with urethane mounts. Now that I've driven them 5 days, I'm happy with the urethane mounts. They translate more engine vibration into the frame than the stock mounts, but it's not bad. I decided against Delrin or aluminum. It didn't seem worth having something SO solid in there. I've been in cars with completely solid bushings. It's more punishing than I think I need. I think it was the right choice for me. I'm eyeing all the other bushings in the car now. All other bushings are still stock. |
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08-10-2015, 08:54 PM | #24 |
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we talked about solid bushings for a little bit while i was picking up those tires at your house a while back. i think you were on the fence about them, citing the reason being that they could potentially be transferring energy (stress) to parts of the car's body that wasn't meant to handle that stress. did you change your mind after further research, or are you a little more confident in the car's ability to handle it because of the increased rigidity with the cage?
i'm likely going to do solid subframe bushings, but keep the differential bushings stock for now. i think i would like a little more of a solid feel out of the rear end, but i want to keep a little slack in the driveline for comfort and to have a little slack in the driveline.
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08-10-2015, 08:56 PM | #25 | ||
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Oh yes totally hold off...I run at Limerock so I had to switch to the rear ESS section from my Meistershaft Gt2. I've been looking myself for complete carbon doors, hood and boot lid on MOTORSPORT24.de Great site and amazing products but priceyyyyyyyy with the shipping and customs etc. |
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08-10-2015, 09:02 PM | #26 |
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One other minor (but sorta cool) development this week: Now that the driver door is removable and I take it off when putting the car in the trailer, I needed to figure out what to do with the door once it was off. Sticking it in the pickup truck backseat was not a longterm solution.
I visited my trailer shop and they made a solution that I am QUITE happy with. They created a custom bracket that holds the door. The pegs from the door hinge hook in on one side and they created a latch point on the other side that the door latch simply closes on. It's as if the door is sitting on the car as far as the door is concerned. We weren't sure the car would be able to drive into the trailer with the door on the wall, but it turns out it was no problem at all. There are several inches of room between the passenger mirror and the door hanging on the wall. Check it out: Last edited by dogbone; 08-10-2015 at 09:50 PM.. |
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08-10-2015, 10:16 PM | #27 | |
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A couple of recent things have brought out the idea of the underside bushings: 1. seeing what the engine mounts looked like. They were punished something awful. 2. Seeing what happened on track with my friend's 996 GT3. My friend with the GT3 has been having some failures on track---the most recent being a broken rear axle at Turn 2 at Sonoma. That experience led him to have an entire round of rejuvenating done to the car. It was VERY expensive, but the axle demonstrated in very clear terms that stuff simply needs to be replaced on a regular cycle when used this hard---even if nothing appears to be wrong. So I'm trying to stay ahead of parts failing. In the world of cars, I find it better to be proactive, and stay ahead of problems, than be reactive and deal with failures as they happen......because dealing with failures as they happen usually means having parts fail on track. My friend went from being reactive to super proactive. Of course, it depends on how hard you drive and how often and what the car is subjected to, but there are general conventions that one can follow when doing preventive maintenance. We look at the stock underside bushings all the time, and they seem to be holding up, but now I'm thinking they've definitely lived a full life and maybe I should consider the next step. |
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08-11-2015, 03:40 AM | #28 | |
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i'm likely going to head to MRF engineering when i decide to get mine, mostly because it seems like he has a lot of experience and seems to be very competent in this area. hopefully i'll bump into you at the track someday, i'd be happy to buy you lunch, check out your car, and pick your brain a bit more.
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08-17-2015, 07:02 PM | #29 | |
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I got my E90 with 39000 miles on it last year. I was reading all that stuff about the rod bearings so I started doing Blackstone Labs sample testing. Here is my last report after 6500 miles (life happens) and FIVE track days:
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08-18-2015, 12:09 PM | #30 |
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Wow man great write up. You have taken it to a whole new level! And 80 track days is insane and great testimate to how well built these are. Makes me miss my M3. My Z06 has to be fully rebuilt after every 5 track days I feel like...junk breaks everytime I drive it. haha! Hope to see you out there soon. I should be up at BW and AAA in October.
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08-19-2015, 06:49 AM | #31 | ||
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08-19-2015, 11:28 AM | #32 | |
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08-25-2015, 07:19 AM | #33 |
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Very nice Gabe....
Love the new safety cage. She is what i would have done to my e90 (minus blower)... im glad u went this far. Cant wait to see u on track again. Always a pleasure. |
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08-25-2015, 12:15 PM | #34 |
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Very nice TIG welding. People just don't appreciate that. I see so many booger welds on cages. They would all fail radiography.
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08-25-2015, 08:59 PM | #35 |
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Nice build. Would love to do that with my '08 someday. Kind of scared of the cost though considering I'd still have to buy a new DD.
How many seconds faster is she now on same tracks?
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08-27-2015, 12:57 PM | #36 | |
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Yeah, I was pretty bummed for you that day at Auto Club when you had problems with the Z06 in it's first session…….hehe You should have held on to that white E90 beast! You were flying in that thing! |
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08-27-2015, 01:07 PM | #37 |
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Yeah, I'm sure we'll put holes in the rear window when the time comes to deal with it. I'm in no hurry. The safety stuff is done now, which was my primary concern. Lightening the car is a luxury that I'll address as time goes on. I just bought one of those I/O Port CM1-2 GoPro camera mounts. My friend has one. They make a a great, stable platform for a roll bar mounted camera.
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08-27-2015, 01:12 PM | #38 | |
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I'm finally starting to get the car dialed in. It really is like driving a new car. So much is different. Was at Laguna on Monday and was running low 39's. But most importantly, I was working being more brave on the front straight. Looking at the AIM, I was holding the gas pedal all the way down until I crested and went to 95%. The car got up to GPS-speed 131.7mph before the braking zone for turn 2. I was pretty happy with that. The wing has gone a LLLONG way to making that hump on the the front straight feel more predictable and stable. Hope to see you out there again soon! |
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08-27-2015, 01:45 PM | #39 | |
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It's taken some time to dial the car in with it's new configuration, and that process is still not complete yet. It really is like driving a different vehicle. The weight, wing, weight distribution, weight transfer, suspension feel, height of the car, braking zones, acceleration, alignment------literally everything is different. I take my time to build confidence when it comes to tracking. Anyway, at Buttonwillow this weekend, I was on 5 day-old tires in 85 degree heat. That usually does not make for great lap times. But I was able to get to within 4/100th of a second of my PB there. In my experience, in those conditions with my old setup, I would have been 2 seconds off that pace. My PB was set on newer tires when it was 56 degrees out. So, I have no doubt that over the next few months the times will continue to drop. It's interesting that when I first got the car back, I had to take a couple steps back and re-learn some things. The first and biggest thing that was glaring was the braking zones. Because the car is lighter, the braking zones can be as much as 150 feet later than they were. An amateur like me who's driven hundreds of laps in one car for several years does not simply just re-learn that instantly. My brain has those old points really stuck in my head. It's been interesting to watch the AIM solo data showing me how my braking points are moving later and later. I'm adjusting but it's taking some time. I've actually done a second/different alignment since I got the car back. That has stabilized the braking feel. At first I thought the brake pads were too powerful now that the car was lighter. But now I don't feel that way. They feel great now that the car is more stable under heavy braking. I've been adjusting the wing---dialing the angle of attack to a mellower setting. I think i'll probably set the front sway bar to a mellower setting to see if that gives me a bit more front grip back. If not, I may consider pushing the agenda of the front splitter a bit sooner. I'm not too excited about that for reasons I've mentioned before. I'm still experimenting with the JRZ settings. I think the car feels pretty good, but maybe I can get a bit more front grip from the suspension settings too. We kept the same springs, which I think was the right idea with the wing in the rear. The front didn't lose much weight, and you can see from the pix on the track that the rear is definitely being pushed down by the wing, so I don't think I want to lower spring rates. Anyway, all this stuff is in transition, and the temps have been very hot, so as I keep driving and learning the car and trying to set it up properly, I have no doubt the car will be faster. The ft/sec acceleration is definitely faster when you look at it on the AIM. I'm actually quite annoyed with my AIM Solo DL………on Sunday, at Buttonwillow, it actually told me I had run a new PB (1:53.85), but the track transponder did not agree (1:54.07)……..hehe ah well…..It was quite a joyous moment in the car-----only to have the bubble burst when looking at the transponder print-out……boohoo |
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08-28-2015, 03:20 PM | #40 |
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Thanks for the update. I LOVE tweaking the little things that go into tracking the car. I also get a little vicarious buzz just reading other people's journeys and experiences.
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08-28-2015, 04:09 PM | #41 | |
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Caging the car, and then feeling the differences from the whole job all at once totally threw me for a loop. That was one massive wholesale change. Heck, just driving with a race seat, harness and neck restraint was totally new. hehe just getting in and out of a caged car was totally new for me! So many new sensations. Over the last 3.5 years, as I've been driving more and more on track, I've felt that one thing I've constantly improved upon was my ability to tune things out and focus on certain things. There's so much noise and distractions and physical sensations when you're on track that it's overwhelming. As time goes on, I've learned to tune things out and focus on what I want. When I first got in the caged car-----oh my god----- it was just sensory overload all over again. haha! It was SO much louder inside, all the windows were "down" (gone), a harness and neck restraint pressing on all sorts of body parts, I was sitting quite a bit lower than stock, the suspension acts differently with the weight change---gotta figure new settings there, there were way more vibrations with all sound deadening out along with urethane engine mounts, the car was super tail happy before the wing, I was jammed into a race seat, car braking and turning was different. hehe my senses were back into full overload like when I was a newbie. This civil, leather-interior, fairly quiet car had turned into what seemed like a raging monster by comparison. But over the last 5 track days, I've regained quite a bit of control over my senses. And I'm much more aware of the process this time. It's really an awesome feeling to now be getting comfortable in this new setup. The car is awesome. Now if only I could look a little more graceful when getting out of it…… |
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09-01-2015, 11:55 AM | #42 |
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09-12-2015, 02:18 AM | #43 |
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what exactly causes you to be sitting lower? is it anything besides the seat its self? bracket? is it due to something specific like gutting the interior?
i'm asking because i wouldn't mind sitting an inch or two lower.
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09-12-2015, 03:28 AM | #44 | |
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I'm guessing here, but I don't think you can sit any lower with the stock seats. |
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