Track forum general chit chat.

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by macdude357

I have a bent Titan7 from track use. I contacted them. They said warranty doesn't cover track use. They would sell me a replacement for 360 + 25 shipping. Not exactly wowed.

Interesting. You’re the first person that I’ve heard of bending one and dealing with that.

So basically they offered you 25% off with $25 shipping. Apex is 50% off with $20 shipping.

Did you have to send your old rim back to Titan?

(I will attempt to clarify what they told me.)

[roastbeef]

Yea, let's pin them down with their exemptions in writing on this public forum.
We already know apex let's their balls hang out.

[M3ANMACHINE]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

Yea, let's pin them down with their exemptions in writing on this public forum.
We already know apex let's their balls hang out.

It should be public knowledge. Otherwise you get people with expectations when you're touting a "lifetime warranty" that doesn't really help you at all with a bend/crack

[M3 Number 86]

Originally Posted by jktx

What is the recommendation for airbags in dedicated track cars? I have halo seats, half cage, 6 pt harnesses on the way - going to be track only after they are installed. I can't think of any negatives still having the front bags but wanted to get some knowledgeable opinions on it. Thanks!

Are you going to get a net too? Maybe curtain airbags can act as that? I'm the opposite situation as you. Took the cage out and just took the halo out. Took omp wheel out a while ago. I'm using quickfit pro so I'll rely on airbags again lol

[bigjae1976]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Interesting. You’re the first person that I’ve heard of bending one and dealing with that.

So basically they offered you 25% off with $25 shipping. Apex is 50% off with $20 shipping.

Did you have to send your old rim back to Titan?

(I will attempt to clarify what they told me.)

$360 is 25% off? Wow...that's a good chunk of change for a wheel that is going to get abused.

That's like 2 ARC8s during a group buy.

[OG Shark]

Originally Posted by M3 Number 86

Are you going to get a net too? Maybe curtain airbags can act as that? I'm the opposite situation as you. Took the cage out and just took the halo out. Took omp wheel out a while ago. I'm using quickfit pro so I'll rely on airbags again lol

So I figured nets would come if/when I make the move to a full cage. Will probably keep most of the interior until that point so yeah likely keep the bags until then since sounds like only negative might be chance of unintentional deployment (which would really suck). Pretty much bought in on eventually going full stupid on this car but until that point keep it pretty easy to reverse like it sounds like you are doing. Why the move back?

[DreamTime]

Saturday at VIR I ran down my first GT3. I caught up to him in the climbing esses then was on his ass at Oak Tree. When he pointed me by at the beginning of the back straight my smile almost broke my face

///MPower

[Chris_PDX]

Originally Posted by DreamTime

Saturday at VIR I ran down my first GT3. I caught up to him in the climbing esses then was on his ass at Oak Tree. When he pointed me by at the beginning of the back straight my smile almost broke my face

///MPower

I had someone in a 911 Cup Car point me by in my E46. He stayed on my bumper down the straight but I lost him in the corners. That was one of the best days ever.

Of course, that was down to the driver, not the car. I'm pretty sure it was a new car to him LOL.

[DreamTime]

Originally Posted by Chris_PDX

I had someone in a 911 Cup Car point me by in my E46. He stayed on my bumper down the straight but I lost him in the corners. That was one of the best days ever.

Of course, that was down to the driver, not the car. I'm pretty sure it was a new car to him LOL.

That is awesome!! Lol, yeah... I only passed one of the GT3s that were on track with me this weekend, but I'll take it! And, I was just in upper intermediate run group so I would get spanked by advanced drivers in a car like that. I still have a ways to go.

It was a perfect weekend to end the season though. Getting smoother, more consistent, and faster feels soooooo good

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by bigjae1976

$360 is 25% off? Wow...that's a good chunk of change for a wheel that is going to get abused.

That's like 2 ARC8s during a group buy.

In my mind, I think it's sorta hard to compare a group buy of a flow-formed wheel to the replacement cost of a track-damaged forged wheel. Isn't that two different scenarios? Can you even buy just two rims in a group buy? Forged and flow-formed have never been the same cost and LOTS of track guys run forged knowing the wheels will take abuse.

I pursued forged rims because I was interested in a potentially stronger wheel that could resist flex better. My hope is that I could stop breaking studs and the wheel could be more responsive. Of course, there's no way to know until you run them. And I felt that the only proper way to do it was to replace all three sets. You can't run one set of forged rims and two sets of flow-formed wheels and make any conclusions about stud breakage, etc. So, I bought 3 sets to fully replace my flow-formed wheels, and at the same time, I replaced all 4 hubs on the car (the rears are a HUGE pain in the ass), and I replaced all 20 studs and lug nuts, so I basically reset my entire rim and rotating system setup.

So, we'll see. The car does feel a bit more nimble on the forged rims. When I turn the wheel at speed, I believe the car reacts a bit more swiftly than it used to. It actually took me a bit of getting used to it. I have to be smoother with the steering wheel than I used to. And up to this point, no broken studs. So, if I can get a bit more performance from forged rims, and not have to deal with any more broken studs, and maybe bend less rims, then I consider it well worth the few extra bucks of forged over flow-formed because vendors like Titan-7 are narrowing the gap. (I've heard there are more budget forged rim options coming from other vendors.) But like I said----we'll see how it all works out. It's too soon to tell. I'm never in a hurry to make conclusions about these things.

[Richbot]

Airbags are a safety issue for corner workers and wrecker crews at the track. My rule of thumb is, if you feel the need/are required to install a fire system, there shouldn't be any pyrotechnics in the car

[M3MPH1S]

*Sorry in advance for the giant post*

So I did an event at National Corvette Museum last month and after the first day I noticed a bit of a weird unbalanced vibration while accelerating. At first I thought it was either a lost wheel weight or maybe excess rubber on the wheels causing them to go out of balance. Cleaned off all the rubber and checked for missing wheel weights but couldn't really tell because of the old mounting spots. Day 2 and 3 the vibration was better sometimes and worse sometimes, but never got crazy so I just pushed on. The next 2 weeks while driving on the street the vibration got more pronounced, and since I had switched back to my street wheels I ruled out wheel balance and assumed it was the motor mounts. I've had mounts on my short list for a while, but at last inspection around 140k they looked fine. I kept reading different threads with different opinions on reliability and streetability of different flavors of mounts and there was no real consensus. Well due to a new job opportunity I have moved to Atlanta and am driving the M3 significantly less (33k/year --> 3~5k per year) so now my decision was easy and I decided to throw streetability out the window and go for the stiffest mounts available next to solid (for the car's sake, not mine lol) - Revshift 75D poly. In the meantime I've been busy with moving across states and acclimating to a new job and partially just being lazy, I never bothered checking the old mounts, just waited for the new ones to show up. Well let me just show you...

This is original engine mounts at 155k miles (with 15 track days)



















--------------- And the new Revshift mounts ------------------






And honestly, I don't see what the big fuss is over poly mounts ruining the ride. There's barely any vibration feel added to the steering wheel and the only noise added is a decent amount of mechanical engine noise starting around 4-5k, but it's not like it's so loud that it's going to drown out conversations for become annoying. I would say stock xpipe with a moderately aggressive axleback would add more noise. I have fully catless midpipe with RPI axleback so I'm way past that, but still. And I'm waiting on the same material transmission mounts because they're on back order for a few weeks, but already the shifts are much more controlled.

[M3MPH1S]

Originally Posted by Bimmer Barney

I have a go pro, a carly, an external mic, and an iPhone. How do I make a fancy HPDE session video with rpm and speed overlay?

Delayed answer, but I'm using carly + harry's + phone and tried my hand at video overlay for the first time recently. With the petrolhead edition and Carly, I was able to get speed, rpm, brake/gas pedal application, gforce, and of course map overlay with time. Only issue I had was that while in the preview the video was oriented correctly, after processing, Harry's automatically switched the orientation to landscape. I know, I know, I should have been filming landscape anyway, but I was having issues with my phone mount and just gave up.

But anyway, I've run Harry's side by side (independently, not connected) with Aim Solo at Road Atlanta and it was never off by more than 3 tenths of a second. I've run Harry's side by side with a transponder for a time trial event at Carolina Motorsport Park and National Corvette Museum and my times were never off by more than 8 tenths. I'm not trying to dispute the fact that higher refresh rate is better and I'm sure different geographical regions/cars/phones/carriers/weather/ancient curses/general bad luck/etc has an effect on people's experience, but for me it's been accurate enough to get an idea of the general pace I'm running and figure out trouble areas.

Also, here's my sh*t video. Those with a laptop, please set it on its side

[macdude357]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Did you have to send your old rim back to Titan?

They are not bent enough that they won't balance so I'm still using it for now.

[kyippee]

FWIW I was one of the early purchasers of titan 7 wheels- the T-S5 model. I had an issue with bends and they took very good care of me, better than what was listed earlier.

[bigjae1976]

Originally Posted by M3MPH1S

Delayed answer, but I'm using carly + harry's + phone and tried my hand at video overlay for the first time recently. With the petrolhead edition and Carly, I was able to get speed, rpm, brake/gas pedal application, gforce, and of course map overlay with time. Only issue I had was that while in the preview the video was oriented correctly, after processing, Harry's automatically switched the orientation to landscape. I know, I know, I should have been filming landscape anyway, but I was having issues with my phone mount and just gave up.

But anyway, I've run Harry's side by side (independently, not connected) with Aim Solo at Road Atlanta and it was never off by more than 3 tenths of a second. I've run Harry's side by side with a transponder for a time trial event at Carolina Motorsport Park and National Corvette Museum and my times were never off by more than 8 tenths. I'm not trying to dispute the fact that higher refresh rate is better and I'm sure different geographical regions/cars/phones/carriers/weather/ancient curses/general bad luck/etc has an effect on people's experience, but for me it's been accurate enough to get an idea of the general pace I'm running and figure out trouble areas.

Also, here's my sh*t video. Those with a laptop, please set it on its side

That is one of the worst video editing efforts I've seen...:

[dogbone]

Originally Posted by kpewpew

FWIW I was one of the early purchasers of titan 7 wheels- the T-S5 model. I had an issue with bends and they took very good care of me, better than what was listed earlier.

Was the damage specifically from track use? Was your wheel ruined and not driveable? Are you allowed to elaborate on your conclusion? Or at the very least, would you say that after your experience, that Titan7 does have a warranty that covers track damage?

In macdude357’s case, it sounds like his rim is still driveable since it
can still be balanced. I’m not sure how a warranty works on a rim that still balances out.....it almost sounds like there are two levels of warranty——one where the wheel is ruined/cracked/undriveable, and one where the wheel is still driveable but the owner wants to switch it out. It’s this way with Apex. My Apex rims would bend but I never cracked one. My friend developed a crack in his Apex rim. In my case, I fell under the 50% off policy. My friend, however, had his rim replaced at no cost. Is Titan7 similar? Like I said before, I don’t know because I haven’t had to deal with it yet.

Anyway, I’m curious to know more.

[warp10]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Was the damage specifically from track use? Was your wheel ruined and not driveable? Are you allowed to elaborate on your conclusion? Or at the very least, would you say that after your experience, that Titan7 does have a warranty that covers track damage?

In macdude357’s case, it sounds like his rim is still driveable since it
can still be balanced. I’m not sure how a warranty works on a rim that still balances out.....it almost sounds like there are two levels of warranty——one where the wheel is ruined/cracked/undriveable, and one where the wheel is still driveable but the owner wants to switch it out. It’s this way with Apex. My Apex rims would bend but I never cracked one. My friend developed a crack in his Apex rim. In my case, I fell under the 50% off policy. My friend, however, had his rim replaced at no cost. Is Titan7 similar? Like I said before, I don’t know because I haven’t had to deal with it yet.

Anyway, I’m curious to know more.

Why buy quality forged rims?! When you blow a tire and have drove all the way around Road Atlanta and no damage to rim. Balanced out with no weights. Forgeline GS1R for reference.

[Richbot]

That seems more like a "got lucky the carcass didn't escape" than a forged rim thing

[macdude357]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Anyway, I’m curious to know more.

It's hard to say how the damage occurred because I didn't realize it was bent until I had to put new tires on. I mostly drive these wheels to and from the track and on the track. When I emailed Titan7, I just said I had a bent wheel from tracking and didn't elaborate on the damage. I was just trying to find out their policy since if it was cheap enough, I'd go ahead and swap it out when this set of tires is done. They told me the warranty only covered defects and not damage from normal or track use. So their policy is to sell you a replacement at a slight discount.

Originally Posted by warp10

Why buy quality forged rims?! When you blow a tire and have drove all the way around Road Atlanta and no damage to rim. Balanced out with no weights. Forgeline GS1R for reference.

And they say our cars don't come with runflats.

[tom @ eas]

Originally Posted by macdude357

It's hard to say how the damage occurred because I didn't realize it was bent until I had to put new tires on. I mostly drive these wheels to and from the track and on the track. When I emailed Titan7, I just said I had a bent wheel from tracking and didn't elaborate on the damage. I was just trying to find out their policy since if it was cheap enough, I'd go ahead and swap it out when this set of tires is done. They told me the warranty only covered defects and not damage from normal or track use. So their policy is to sell you a replacement at a slight discount.

PM me with your details and I'll get this taken care of for you.

[kyippee]

Originally Posted by dogbone

Was the damage specifically from track use? Was your wheel ruined and not driveable? Are you allowed to elaborate on your conclusion? Or at the very least, would you say that after your experience, that Titan7 does have a warranty that covers track damage?

In macdude357’s case, it sounds like his rim is still driveable since it
can still be balanced. I’m not sure how a warranty works on a rim that still balances out.....it almost sounds like there are two levels of warranty——one where the wheel is ruined/cracked/undriveable, and one where the wheel is still driveable but the owner wants to switch it out. It’s this way with Apex. My Apex rims would bend but I never cracked one. My friend developed a crack in his Apex rim. In my case, I fell under the 50% off policy. My friend, however, had his rim replaced at no cost. Is Titan7 similar? Like I said before, I don’t know because I haven’t had to deal with it yet.

Anyway, I’m curious to know more.

I don't have restrictions on what I can say, but I just prefer not to post and set precedent. It was a positive experience and they got the original wheels back for diag/research, and what happened with me isn't in their written policy.

I could not tell if it was track of street use that bent the wheels. I did not recall or notice running over any significant bumps when I bent 3 out of 4 wheels within the first few months, and had only done a few track days with those wheels + PSS. Definitely wasn't in my hooligan stage as I am now.

Looks like Tom @ EAS has offered to help, so glad to see that!