E9x M3 LAP TIMES (Road Course)

[roastbeef]

redpriest got into tracking... buy stock in undertrays.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by redpriest

I knew I'd seen your car before dogbone Was good to meet you, we met at the gas station and I got to see your incredible car up close. Fantastic time, it's pretty amazing how fast you're able to go through some of those turns. Thanks for posting the video; can definitely learn from your lines!

Thanks! Yeah the aero is pretty amazing at holding the car down. This was only my second weekend with aero on front and back. It's going to take some getting used to.

Anyway, that was a fun day yesterday. It was a totally mellow crowd. I met a bunch of nice people.

[TheKosherStogie]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Thanks! Yeah the aero is pretty amazing at holding the car down. This was only my second weekend with aero on front and back. It's going to take some getting used to.

Anyway, that was a fun day yesterday. It was a totally mellow crowd. I met a bunch of nice people.

Stop being a wanker on turn 8 Gabe!!! You have TD's and a Wing now. An easy 135mph minimum. I was at 130-32 with rs3 tires on the e92.

Congrats on the new times though. Very fast. But you got an easy 1:27!! U can do it!!!

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by TheKosherStogie

Stop being a wanker on turn 8 Gabe!!! You have TD's and a Wing now. An easy 135mph minimum. I was at 130-32 with rs3 tires on the e92.

Congrats on the new times though. Very fast. But you got an easy 1:27!! U can do it!!!

haha! Yeah, I'm a slow learning wanker…..but I'm working on it!

You know, I've been going through those turns at the same speed for 2 years. All of a sudden the car is quite different and can handle a lot more speed. It's gonna take me a bit of time for my brain to adjust to these new speeds. It takes me time to build trust in the hardware.

Anyway, the car feels great. I can't wait to try it at Buttonwillow. And of course, there will be a whole new learning curve there too with the full aero.

I'm sure you'll be lecturing me about my wankerness in Riverside!

You're looking good in the Viper!

[TheKosherStogie]

^ thanks. Hopefully see you there on the 20th! Maybe I can keep up now. Ran a 1:28:9 at wsir (only ran 1 session and first time with the car).

I fucked up on turn 1. Brakes may need some new pads or something so wasn't confidence inspiring but check out turn 8 speeds!

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by TheKosherStogie

^ thanks. Hopefully see you there on the 20th! Maybe I can keep up now. Ran a 1:28:9 at wsir (only ran 1 session and first time with the car).

I fucked up on turn 1. Brakes may need some new pads or something but went confidence inspiring but check out turn 8 speeds!

You're gonna be a rocket in that car once you get comfortable with it. I'm glad that you got it so we can see one of our homies pushing it around. Good times!!

[surewin]

Originally Posted by kaiv

Looks pretty darn good for a 4th time!! Not to mention a stock car! Impressive

Thanks! I know I still have a lot to improve on, so I try to look at my videos a lot to see where I can make things better.

[surewin]

Originally Posted by dogbone

I gotta tell ya, from watching your video, I'm blown away that this was your fourth time on a track. What I'm talking about specifically is that your ability to catch the car as it pushes past the limit of the tires is extremely advanced. You make it look quite effortless. I watched more than 2 dozen catches just in that session, including an almost-tank-slapper coming out of Bus Stop (at 14:10) which you handled without any trouble. You show complete poise and keep the gas pedal pressed properly on every catch. Have you ever done karting or autocross or skid pad or car handling clinics or---I don't know---video games?

I'm curious to see more of your driving in the future.

Thanks for the kind words! Yeah- I made that mistake at bus stop because I tried to correct my line at the last min. I wasn't looking early enough for my exit.

Before I stepped foot on the track, I actually experimented at empty industrial areas in the middle of the night to just get used to catching 2nd gear slides. I tried to keep it safe! I've also done quite a few karting sessions, albeit these were small displacement rent-a-karts. Still fun though! I want to try renting the higher displacement karts at Auto Club Speedway someday.

I also spent a weekend at Barber Motorsport Park in Alabama for the Porsche Motorsport Driving School. Although they reiterate a lot of the fundamentals, I did walk away from that 2 day course learning a lot, especially while being taught by pro racing drivers. Barber Motorsport Park is also just a blast to drive on.

James Gue, one of their instructors who races for Core Autosport in the Prototype Challenge class for TUDORs, actually complimented my heel/toe technique and asked if I had any previous training. That seriously made my weekend! He actually helped me find a better technique for heel/toeing, which helped a lot this month at Buttonwillow.

To tell you the truth, this last visit to Buttonwillow was the first time I really played with the limit of the car- especially getting the car to rotate under braking during corner entry. Even though I was comfortable with correcting the car at 60 mph, I was nervous about correcting at 80-100 mph. I left MDM on at session 3 and tried to recognize when traction control was intervening. Once I felt comfortable knowing when and how the car will break loose at higher speeds, I turned off DTC.

I always hear about people praising the M3's balance, but I never really got to experience it until this last visit to Buttonwillow. Equipped with the Michelin Pilot Super Sports, the car breaks loose very progressively at higher speeds, and when you're able to sense that and make a connection with the car, it definitely builds your confidence!

I was just a little bummed my brakes faded during session 4. However, I've actually just installed a Stoptech BBK recently so no more brake fade for me! Can't wait to see how they're like on track-

[surewin]

Originally Posted by redpriest

Here's a video of my 1:28.00 streets lap:

I had a booboo earlier on that could have really gone badly, but my car miraculously escaped major damage:

RIP splash guard and driver side undertray:


Like roastbeef said, I apparently need to keep multiple trays on hand when I make these kinds of mistakes

I lost my right side under tray when I hit a cone. Crack the right air duct, too. Those two things cost me 180 bucks! haha

[roastbeef]

he hit that cone at the 9 second mark. at least he didn't go more to the left and hit that ditch. that would have really sucked.

[dapopa9]

yeah that's the area where cars often flip and roll. I think one did on Sunday with SpeedVentures

[dapopa9]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Anyway, this was a reduction of 3 full seconds of my previous best.

E90 M3
Track/course: Chuckwalla CW
Best Lap Time: 1:55.87 (transponder)
Brakes: AP Racing - Cobalt Friction XR2 front/XR3 rear
Tires: Hankook TD - 295/30/18 square on Apex Arc-8 10.5" (tires on 1st day)
Suspension: JRZ RS Pro
Other mods: VF620, Akrapovic X-Pipe with stock exhaust, RD Sport front sway bar, car is gutted with full roll cage, APR 67" GT-250 wing, carbon lip, APR front splitter, Euro-MDM on.



E90 M3
Track/course: Willow Springs - Big Willow
Best Lap Time: 1:28.44 (transponder)
Brakes: AP Racing - Cobalt Friction XR2 front/XR3 rear
Tires: Hankook TD - 295/30/18 square on Apex Arc-8 10.5" (tires on 2nd day)
Suspension: JRZ RS Pro
Other mods: VF620, Akrapovic X-Pipe with stock exhaust, RD Sport front sway bar, car is gutted with full roll cage, APR 67" GT-250 wing, carbon lip, APR front splitter, Euro-MDM on.

You are killing it out there! Cant wait to see what you lay down at BW 13CW now. It nuts how much the aero helps to reduce laptimes.

[dapopa9]

Here are some ridiculously fast times to shoot for posted by the new stock Viper ACR:

[redpriest]

Originally Posted by dapopa9

yeah that's the area where cars often flip and roll. I think one did on Sunday with SpeedVentures

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by surewin

Thanks for the kind words! Yeah- I made that mistake at bus stop because I tried to correct my line at the last min. I wasn't looking early enough for my exit.

Before I stepped foot on the track, I actually experimented at empty industrial areas in the middle of the night to just get used to catching 2nd gear slides. I tried to keep it safe! I've also done quite a few karting sessions, albeit these were small displacement rent-a-karts. Still fun though! I want to try renting the higher displacement karts at Auto Club Speedway someday.

I also spent a weekend at Barber Motorsport Park in Alabama for the Porsche Motorsport Driving School. Although they reiterate a lot of the fundamentals, I did walk away from that 2 day course learning a lot, especially while being taught by pro racing drivers. Barber Motorsport Park is also just a blast to drive on.

I was just a little bummed my brakes faded during session 4. However, I've actually just installed a Stoptech BBK recently so no more brake fade for me! Can't wait to see how they're like on track-

Your experiences prior to visiting Buttonwillow definitely give you some good background for understanding the dynamic movement of a vehicle beyond it's grip limits, but I still congratulate you for being able to put all those pieces together when the shit is going down---especially given how little time you have on a track. You seem to be able to filter out the fear aspect. For instance, on your first hot lap, you exit the Esses and drop two wheels. You fought that back successfully. That is a VERY dynamic moment. Most novice people would drop those wheels, panic, hold the wheel closed trying to "save it" and then the car would hook, oversteer, careen tail-first across the track and then slam into the tire wall on the left side of the track (if the person behind them didn't hit them first). It's happened MANY times. Aaron at Speed Ventures warns people about it in the driver's meeting all the time. I'm naturally cautious; it took me a long time to build speed, so I'm fascinated when someone has the natural ability to ignore the fear aspect of it so early on.

Just to give you a little background-----Buttonwillow was repaved in July 2014. Before the repave, it was said that the limit of a stock M3 on 13CW was 2:06. We saw good drivers who knew the track well, that would show up with a totally stock M3 and 2:06 was the best we saw. When they repaved the track, it seemed that the new pavement gave everyone the gift of 2 seconds on their personal bests. So, let's assume a stock E9x M3's limit is now 2:04 on the current pavement. I haven't heard of anyone doing that, but for conversation's sake let's say that's about the limit of a stock M3 now. Your 2:05 is within about 1 second of the car's limit on 13CW, and you accomplished that in only 4 track days. Oh yeah, and you're doing it with a 6-speed…..I find all of that very impressive.

Keep it up man! This is definitely the right hobby for you!

(On my end, my E90 has full aero on it now and Nov. 20 will be my first chance to try the full aero at Buttonwillow. I'm also going to have stickier tires on there. I'm really curious to see what kind of time I can gain there. Just with aero, I took 3 seconds off at Chuckwalla and 2.4 seconds off at Big Willow. So, I'm hopeful that Buttonwillow could net similar results.)

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by dapopa9

You are killing it out there! Cant wait to see what you lay down at BW 13CW now. It nuts how much the aero helps to reduce laptimes.

Thanks man! Yeah the aero makes the car feel really composed at high speeds. I'm liking it.

Looking forward to Buttonwillow now!

Haven't see you out there in awhile. What days are you planning on doing?

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by surewin

I've actually just installed a Stoptech BBK recently so no more brake fade for me! Can't wait to see how they're like on track-

btw, make sure you get dedicated track pads for your StopTechs. Don't run a hybrid pad that supposedly serves you on both street and track.

A good track pad will be miserable to drive on the street----they will squeal and groan; the materials in a cold track pad are harsh on rotors and chew them up because they're meant to work at hot temps; track pads dust up your wheels something awful; if you go with a higher torque pad, every time you touch the brake on the streets, the car will come to a crashing halt; or it will be the opposite---some track pads don't bite at all when they're cold. Anyway, a good track pad is bad on the street.

On the other side, a hybrid street/pad might be fine on the street but is garbage on the track. They will not perform the way you want.

So, my recommendation is to learn how to swap the pads and then swap dedicated track pads into the calipers the night before your event. It's not very difficult. The toughest part is when you have pads with different thicknesses and you need to be pushing the pistons back into the calipers.

As far as brands---I've been having good luck with Cobalt Friction, but PFC, Endless, Pagid, Hawk, Carbotech, Project Mu are all great brands. In my experience, I find a medium torque pad to work well across different situations. A high torque pad can activate the ABS quickly which is the last thing you want, and a low torque pad struggles against the sheer heavy-ass weight of our car. Ultimately, you want to have some decent pedal modulation capabilities and in my experience, a medium torque pad seems to give that to us in an E9x.

[surewin]

Originally Posted by dogbone

btw, make sure you get dedicated track pads for your StopTechs. Don't run a hybrid pad that supposedly serves you on both street and track.

A good track pad will be miserable to drive on the street----they will squeal and groan; the materials in a cold track pad are harsh on rotors and chew them up because they're meant to work at hot temps; track pads dust up your wheels something awful; if you go with a higher torque pad, every time you touch the brake on the streets, the car will come to a crashing halt; or it will be the opposite---some track pads don't bite at all when they're cold. Anyway, a good track pad is bad on the street.

On the other side, a hybrid street/pad might be fine on the street but is garbage on the track. They will not perform the way you want.

So, my recommendation is to learn how to swap the pads and then swap dedicated track pads into the calipers the night before your event. It's not very difficult. The toughest part is when you have pads with different thicknesses and you need to be pushing the pistons back into the calipers.

As far as brands---I've been having good luck with Cobalt Friction, but PFC, Endless, Pagid, Hawk, Carbotech, Project Mu are all great brands. In my experience, I find a medium torque pad to work well across different situations. A high torque pad can activate the ABS quickly which is the last thing you want, and a low torque pad struggles against the sheer heavy-ass weight of our car. Ultimately, you want to have some decent pedal modulation capabilities and in my experience, a medium torque pad seems to give that to us in an E9x.

Thanks for the suggestions. I was thinking of the Pagid PS19s for track work. Have you had any experience with them?

[surewin]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Your experiences prior to visiting Buttonwillow definitely give you some good background for understanding the dynamic movement of a vehicle beyond it's grip limits, but I still congratulate you for being able to put all those pieces together when the shit is going down---especially given how little time you have on a track. You seem to be able to filter out the fear aspect. For instance, on your first hot lap, you exit the Esses and drop two wheels. You fought that back successfully. That is a VERY dynamic moment. Most novice people would drop those wheels, panic, hold the wheel closed trying to "save it" and then the car would hook, oversteer, careen tail-first across the track and then slam into the tire wall on the left side of the track (if the person behind them didn't hit them first). It's happened MANY times. Aaron at Speed Ventures warns people about it in the driver's meeting all the time. I'm naturally cautious; it took me a long time to build speed, so I'm fascinated when someone has the natural ability to ignore the fear aspect of it so early on.

Just to give you a little background-----Buttonwillow was repaved in July 2014. Before the repave, it was said that the limit of a stock M3 on 13CW was 2:06. We saw good drivers who knew the track well, that would show up with a totally stock M3 and 2:06 was the best we saw. When they repaved the track, it seemed that the new pavement gave everyone the gift of 2 seconds on their personal bests. So, let's assume a stock E9x M3's limit is now 2:04 on the current pavement. I haven't heard of anyone doing that, but for conversation's sake let's say that's about the limit of a stock M3 now. Your 2:05 is within about 1 second of the car's limit on 13CW, and you accomplished that in only 4 track days. Oh yeah, and you're doing it with a 6-speed…..I find all of that very impressive.

Keep it up man! This is definitely the right hobby for you!

(On my end, my E90 has full aero on it now and Nov. 20 will be my first chance to try the full aero at Buttonwillow. I'm also going to have stickier tires on there. I'm really curious to see what kind of time I can gain there. Just with aero, I took 3 seconds off at Chuckwalla and 2.4 seconds off at Big Willow. So, I'm hopeful that Buttonwillow could net similar results.)

Thanks again for the words of encouragement!

I early apexed out of the esses on that first lap. Frankly I lost concentration because coming out of there I'm close to redlining 3rd gear, and while I was concentrating on shifting to 4th without shift locking, I lost site of my line.

In the future I'll just shift into fourth before turning in.

I really didn't plan on modding my car, but I found the brakes to be a major weak point of the E9X, so I thought it would be best to change them in order to get reliable performance lap after lap.

I still think there may be more time to shed after watching my videos, and I expect to shed some more with my Stoptechs anyway. I'll be sure to post future track visits!

Love the color of your car. What other mods have you done?

[surewin]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Ok, I have two new personal bests to share-----full aero----ooooh ahhhhhhhh:

Went to PCA San Diego's Chuckwalla weekend on 10/24-25. Very nice time. Nice crowd. They are a strict group though. Lots of rules to follow. Anyway, this was my first weekend driving with a front splitter (full aero). Bottom line: I love it! The APR wing went on the car first a few months ago to help settle the very light gutted rear of the car. It worked, but (of course) it was inducing some understeer at speeds over 80mph in wide rounders like Riverside at Buttonwillow and Turn 2 and 9 at Big Willow. Previous to the gutting and caging, my car always had a nice balanced feel at all speeds and situations. So, I was not surprised at the understeer, but it was interesting to feel because I never really dealt with it before. Anyway, the front splitter's tip was set at 5" from the tip of the bumper to keep it legal for time attack. With new tires, the car feels AWESOME. With beat up tires, there is a bit of understeer, but nothing like when the splitter was absent. Chuckwalla goes into my books as a success, which was capped off by the PCA time trial at the end of the weekend. I took Second place out of 46 cars. A Porsche beat me by 0.5 second. Anyway, this was a reduction of 3 full seconds of my previous best.

E90 M3
Track/course: Chuckwalla CW
Best Lap Time: 1:55.87 (transponder)
Brakes: AP Racing - Cobalt Friction XR2 front/XR3 rear
Tires: Hankook TD - 295/30/18 square on Apex Arc-8 10.5" (tires on 1st day)
Suspension: JRZ RS Pro
Other mods: VF620, Akrapovic X-Pipe with stock exhaust, RD Sport front sway bar, car is gutted with full roll cage, APR 67" GT-250 wing, carbon lip, APR front splitter, Euro-MDM on.


Then today (11-1) I went to Big Willow with Speed District. As always, Josh puts on on a nice day. It was warm! Darn! It was 77º in the first session……c'mon it's November!! Anyway, the car stuck to the track like glue with the full aero and decent tires and I was able to reduce my personal best by 2.4 seconds. (Buttonwillow is next on the list later this month. I'm very hopeful that the aero will prove as formidable there too.)

E90 M3
Track/course: Willow Springs - Big Willow
Best Lap Time: 1:28.44 (transponder)
Brakes: AP Racing - Cobalt Friction XR2 front/XR3 rear
Tires: Hankook TD - 295/30/18 square on Apex Arc-8 10.5" (tires on 2nd day)
Suspension: JRZ RS Pro
Other mods: VF620, Akrapovic X-Pipe with stock exhaust, RD Sport front sway bar, car is gutted with full roll cage, APR 67" GT-250 wing, carbon lip, APR front splitter, Euro-MDM on.

Smooth driving! Did you notice a vast difference in aero grip on turns 8 and 9?

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by surewin

Thanks for the suggestions. I was thinking of the Pagid PS19s for track work. Have you had any experience with them?

I haven't run them, but I've known many people that run RS19's successfully. They're a medium torque pad. And they're yellow----ooooh ahhhhhh….

When I got my AP Racing BBK, I started out with a medium torque pad, but as time went on, I tried the Cobalt Friction pads. They had more stopping power and it felt good to me. I was researching my Cobalt Friction pads. ( https://www.cobaltfriction.com/Articles.asp?ID=252 ) It turns out the XR2 I'm using is considered a high torque pad, but not the highest they offer. I use XR2 in the front and X3 in the rear. The owner of Cobalt Friction recommended the XR2/XR3 combo. It's very formidable. There's a couple of us running this setup and none of us ever complain about not having enough brakes. Another friend tried XR1 for the front and holy crap, his ABS was kicking in right away. Those things are too powerful for our setups.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by surewin

I really didn't plan on modding my car, but I found the brakes to be a major weak point of the E9X, so I thought it would be best to change them in order to get reliable performance lap after lap.

I still think there may be more time to shed after watching my videos, and I expect to shed some more with my Stoptechs anyway. I'll be sure to post future track visits!

Love the color of your car. What other mods have you done?

hehe car modding is a very deep rabbit hole……some would say it's a borderline addiction. I could step you through the future thought processes you're gonna have if you like. i.e., Well, I need camber plates to save the tire edge and help turn-in….i wonder if pulleys really give a little more juice…..should i get a tune?….is that air filter really the best?……studs are definitely the thing I need to secure those wheels…..hmmm maybe a second set of dedicated track wheels could help….i'm not sure this suspension is really holding these stickier tires on the track properly…..i could go on and on….

You'll be able to find more time as you continue to refine your race line. Also, drifting makes your lap times slower. Perhaps at Off Ramp (turn 2), kicking the tail out a bit can rotate the car so you can get on the gas a bit sooner. But drifting Sweeper or having to counter steer a lot in Cotton Corners or Bus Stop will slow you down. So, you have to ask yourself why are you out there? If you're out there to go fast and make fast lap times, then you want to stay within the limits of the tires and not drift. If you want to go out and have a blast and not care about lap times, then you go drift every corner. But it's great to have the ability to catch the car in any situation so that when you're pushing to the limit, you can deal with it if you pushed too far. Luckily, Buttonwillow is very forgiving in most spots if you need to go off-track.

As far as my car, these are the general mods:

2009 E90 M3, DCT, Interlagos Blue
RWE custom full 6 point cage and fully gutted interior
VF Engineering VF620
AP Racing w/Cobalt Friction XR2 front/XR3 rear
JRZ RS Pro 600/800, 300psi nitrogen
RD Sport front sway bar, set to medium
APR GT-250 rear wing, 4 degree AOA
APR front splitter - tip of splitter is 5" from nose of car
Carbon lip (generic)
Akrapovic Evo X-pipe
Apex ARC-8 10.5" square (3 sets)
Hankook TD 295 square (going to run BFGoodrich R1S soon)
Stock rear exhaust w/Macht Schnell black tips
Recaro Profi SPG
Sparco 6-point harness
Macht Schnell base plates and side mounts
VAC anti-sub mounts, lap belt mounts and fire extinguisher mount
Bimmerworld studs
EAS-designed misting system sprays five nozzles of water-mist on three coolers
UltraChiller cooling shirt system

I created a thread with pix about the roll cage and gutting and turning it into a dedicated track car this past summer:

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1158445