Track forum general chit chat.

[XCUSE_M3]

Originally Posted by //steve\\

Who has gone from all stock suspension arms to the full SPL catalog and can comment on just how much of a difference they've noticed?

Just get the strom uprights and do it right with better performance.

[slicer]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

Removed the sound deadening behind the rear seat side panels. 8lbs!

Did you delete your seatbelt extension arms as well? That's another chunk.

[roastbeef]

Originally Posted by slicer

Did you delete your seatbelt extension arms as well? That's another chunk.

No, I mostly wanted to see what was behind there and explore. I want to just strip the car and get it over with, but I'm just not where I need to be to get rid of the speakers and not regret it.
Rear shelf houses two speakers and a bunch of foam too. I might take a look at that today.

[roastbeef]

Originally Posted by turbo_joe

I think I am gonna finally rip out the rest of my rear interior this winter. I have no back seat but didn't remove anything else yet

There is a lot to lose back there. I kinda presumed you already stripped it. Is your carpet gone?

[turbo_joe]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

There is a lot to lose back there. I kinda presumed you already stripped it. Is your carpet gone?

Nope just the rear seat itself is removed. The side bolsters, seat belts, etc. are all still there

[roastbeef]

Originally Posted by turbo_joe

Nope just the rear seat itself is removed. The side bolsters, seat belts, etc. are all still there

Well you probably have another 50+ pounds to lose. Floor carpet is worth ditching as well.
There isn't anything behind the metal panels under the side trim in the back seat. I wanted to drive around and see the audible differences before I ditched them though.
Have fun!

[turbo_joe]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

Well you probably have another 50+ pounds to lose. Floor carpet is worth ditching as well.
There isn't anything behind the metal panels under the side trim in the back seat. I wanted to drive around and see the audible differences before I ditched them though.
Have fun!

I dont mind the sound so much but want to keep my speakers lol

[slicer]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

No, I mostly wanted to see what was behind there and explore. I want to just strip the car and get it over with, but I'm just not where I need to be to get rid of the speakers and not regret it.
Rear shelf houses two speakers and a bunch of foam too. I might take a look at that today.

I removed the foam on the rear deck and my recollection is that it was about 2 lbs. note that the standard sound system doesn't have rear deck speakers (at least my 2013 didn't have them) so you could swap to a rear deck from a non EPS car to clean things up if you remove the speakers.

[slicer]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

Well you probably have another 50+ pounds to lose. Floor carpet is worth ditching as well.
There isn't anything behind the metal panels under the side trim in the back seat. I wanted to drive around and see the audible differences before I ditched them though.
Have fun!

I removed the rear carpet backing and everything under center console plus under front seats for another decent chunk of weight while maintaining the aesthetic of the carpet.

I am working on a US made carbon front floor panel now (for resale). I will delete all the carpet Once we get a deal put together on that.

[roastbeef]

Originally Posted by turbo_joe

I dont mind the sound so much but want to keep my speakers lol

I think we're in the same boat.

[//steve\\]

I really want to weigh by car. I do have a rear deck that doesn't have the sunshade I keep meaning to look at swapping.

[Bartledoo]

I got rid of only the shelf speakers, and I hardly notice a difference in the stereo lol. My base stereo didn't have rear door speakers either.

[Shmelgy]

Originally Posted by //steve\\

Who has gone from all stock suspension arms to the full SPL catalog and can comment on just how much of a difference they've noticed?

Dedicated track car here- full SPL catalog. I don't know if it's a placebo effect, but the car feels more solid and connected to the road. I wish I could comment with a lap time before and after, but other things were changed along with SPL components that contributed to lap time

[OG Shark]

Has anyone redone an epoxy coating on a concrete floor? The floor is in pretty good shape - looks like a couple of cracks and a few spots of oil that need to be addressed. The old coating has come off in quite a few places though so want to redo it now while the building is empty. Since there is still some coating on there I am thinking of renting a floor polisher & want of these pads - Coating Removal Disc - has anyone used one of these before? From what I understand after grinding with this should not need to do an acid etch? Any other advice?

[stefan_e36]

I’m a newcomer at this forum, 2 months ago I bought e92 m3 competition pack, and had already done my first 2 track days with m3 at our local track Chayka (Ukraine).
https://uk.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%...0%D0%BE%D0%BC)
stock spec. The oil temperature was near 120 C on fast laps, not critical, as for me. Best time: 1.33.585
Tires: front 245/35 r19 michelin cup+ ; rear 265/45 r19 michelin pss
Suppose to reach 1.28.00 with more skill
As I have already read at this forum, suppose that the first upgrade will be brake pads (hawk hp+), but next year.
This season only training my own skills.





The times of my class:

[911r]

Originally Posted by //steve\\

Who has gone from all stock suspension arms to the full SPL catalog and can comment on just how much of a difference they've noticed?

I'm keen to know as well. I have about 1/3rd of their catolaugoe at the moment, debating if I should go all in.

[admranger]

The below should be trimmed a bit and made a sticky at the top of the forum.

This is a recipe for success.

Originally Posted by Richbot

a) glad you're ok b) I'm jealous of that facility it looks amazing c) sorry for the annoyingly long bleacher report but what else am I going to do today that's car related this energy has to come uot somewhere and you posted the video soooo

The 1:30 step-out was asking the rear tires to turn and brake at the same time, it stepped out while you were already threshold braking and turning the wheel, normal response, and you accidentally-on-purpose got the car into a pretty good attitude for corner-entry!

The off was, IMO (and like others said), a car placement issue and you got behind on your inputs. The "hit your marks" school cones are spot on for that sequence IMO, you want the car on the "back side" of both of those in that sequence. Lifting a bit earlier to take more right side track for the right-ish bend right before, cutting in from further outside with a more aggressive initial turn-in would have saved you there, IMO. This comment applies in general to your input, the car can take a lot more steering input on turn-in than you're giving it, and this pays dividends all the way through the corner as you get the car rotated sooner and can deal with any balance issues mid-corner rather than at track-out where you are out of road. You seem early in a few places leading up to the oopsies - early in , grass out, lolsob.

Smooth is fast is a damn lie, fast is fast, and fast is safe. Watch in-car from any good racing driver and the wheel moves a LOT, beacuse the front tire load is being managed constantly, the clock likes it and from outside it looks smooth, but inside it's not just one smooth rheostatic arc of input, you want the tires to be loaded smoothly, of course, but you can use jazz hands or a hammer so long as the loads the tires are seeing are not excessively peaky you're fine. Corrections should be like an Ali punch, pew pew, the front tire doesn't even see your hand move it just feels the punch

Also, take it from somebody who has cut a lot of grass, straighten the wheel, or even turn a bit TOWARD the grass to the point of intentionally easing the transition, if you're worried you're about to have an off! Often the only thing you injure is your pride going straight off UNLESS you have the wheel turned as the tires dig in, then wheeee smash. This is all part of the anticipatory driving that you will, if you have enough oopsies, eventually get good at - you already know what the input is going to do to the car's attitude before you make it, so when the natural consequence of that input happens, even if it's a slide or a bad placement, you're already 3 or 4 steps ahead of the car upstairs, so you aren't driving reactively, you're proactive and can manage anything that comes your way next even if it's grass everywhere

Also also, are you taking mid-session tire pressures, and when in the session, and how? Make sure you're taking hot pressures off a hot in-lap (rather than back in your paddock spot after a cool-down) to get a real idea of how much air you've got in the tires, once you get it once for a given track, you can write down your pressures and pretty much set and forget to get close to the *right* hot pressure. If its' not feeling stable on a staggered setup, I wonder about tire pressure. Michelins are flexy and therefore pressure-sensitive, and the flex can cause them to build heat and therefore pressure faster than other more track-oriented tires.

Good luck getting it put back together! That's a sucky feeling. I watched the video first though, and was expecting a lot more carnage, car looks 30 minutes worth of work from good to go to me! Sometimes, you just screw up and crash, even when you do everything else right.

Originally Posted by Richbot

The idea of the more assertive turn-in is, partially, a question of line and a question of throttle application, and a qusetion of the car's attitude as it moves through the corner, can't really divorce them from eachother

You want to square off your entries a bit more, so that you turn in a bit later and more sharply, and as you're turning in you're leaning the car back onto the outside rear tire progressively feeding throttle in until you're WOT.

You have to get through the turn somehow, and just about all ways around require the same "amount" of turning, but the more turning you get done and over with at the entry phase of the corner, the less you have to do on the exit, where holding the wheel turned while you're also unloading the front tires with acceleration causes understeer and/or can cause a snap-oversteer "pushy-loose" situation when the suspension needs to mvoe over a bump or whatnot with too much steering lock dialed in. If the car feels loose, but is also understeering, this is often what's happening, with too much entry speed you will have too much lock dialed in to just make it through the corner at all, and then when you ask the rear tires to start accepting load from the powertrain, something has to give.

Ideally the wheel is near-straight from mid-corner to exit, not because you're not turning, but because the car is in a cornering attitude that doesn't need much steering input anymore, slip angle and physics and how hard you are pushing the throttle determine your track-out, rather than how hard the front tires are scrubbing against the pavement. Usually, you need to give up a bit of speed on entry to make this work. If it's washing out, you've tried to put 10lb of speed in a 5lb sack, entry understeer is almost always a too much entry speed problem, and then you're stuck managing understeer through the whole corner (lame, boring, forgettable) instead of oversteer through the corner (fun, attracts fame and fortune, looks rad in photos)

Which means you have to place the car a little differntly on turn-in, if you use the same lnie and turn in more aggressively, you are on the inside grass! Especially if you've slowed a bit more like I mentioned, so, instead of the traditional arc, picture every one of your lines a little bit like the Parabolica at Monza looks from overhead; rather than the arc of a circle it's more like the cross section of the leading edge of an airfoil - sharper near the lower surface of the wing, then gently widening arc as you track out. In autocross we say the idea is to get the inside tires on the "back side" of the apex/clipping point, because if that's where the car's pointed at the apex, tracking out at the limit of traction on the drive wheels is a piece of cake.

These are subtle differences but they matter a lot in a game of inches and tenths of a second. All this word salad is just a vocabulary to give yourself stuff to think about, in the end it's your appendages and rear end that have to do the things!

The car does not look loose in the video to me. It looks like your inputs can loosen it up, which is a good thing, you want to be able to *make* it move its tail, on your terms. I might go down in pressure in the rear a bit (2psi or so) if you're running 36 all around and see how it feels and how the tires look next time. With that much camber I'd think you'd be alright.

I second TSK's comments about rear rebound damping too, a little bit less might help, but I would also take some compression out. A little more compliance in the rear, in general, can help oversteer feel less abrupt, and if they're anything like my old MCS setup, the only thing you're losing with turning them down is speed of response, not quality of damping, it ought to still feel nicely controlled even turned down a bit. I actually ended up pretty close to my "street" settings on a "street" tire, like the RS3, I found turning them up much more than that just made the car skip over some imperfections as it asked too much of the tire and forced it to be a friction damper, and friction dampers suck

Thank you for coming to my ted talk lol

[MaximusB]

I guess I need more camber this is my passenger front, worn outside edge. My car is stock ZCP with front camber max out.
These are RE71R with 5 track days on them. Passenger front (in photo) is by far the worse out of all. Drive front shows wear on the outside shoulder but not as bad as passenger front. Both rears are somewhat even with a bit more wear on outside shoulder.

Tried to get the two front tires flip over but no tire shop would touch it. They all said this particular tire is down to the inner core on the shoulder.

Would you guys suggest I just get a whole net set? Been wanting to try out the NT01. But kind of feel like a waste because the two rears still have lots of thread left and pretty even wear (although I'll still flip the tires side to side).

[rhyary]

Originally Posted by MaximusB

I guess I need more camber this is my passenger front, worn outside edge. My car is stock ZCP with front camber max out.

Having gone thru the same dilemma as you are facing I offer few practical suggestions. Alas don't take my comments as expert advise:

You need new tires. The front do not need to match the rear. Get something. The cheaper the better.

Then.....
1. Go slower in the corners (the cheapest option)

2. Make sure you are not on the throttle before unwinding the wheel. the sure way to kill the outside of the tire is to be too early on the throttle

3. Until you get -3.5 front camber, you will eat the outside front if you want to go fast. there is disproportion relationship between speed and eating the outside tire. You go a bit fast, and you eat a big chunk of outside with OEM camber

4. The least costly option is to invest in a front sway bar (Hotchkis for variable, H&R for fixed) and get camber plates

5. Spending money on flipping tires is not cost effective. you can flip left to right if the track you go to has a bias toward left or right turns.

6. Until you figure out the suspension or your driving habits, use hard tires not soft ones. Consider the PS91, FFI500 instead of RE71R or MPSCup2.

7. Since the rear are not consumed as fast, consider softer compound like the RE71R to avoid oversteer as you learn your front.

[//steve\\]

Last time I'll ask (I promise) before I just go do it.....

for those that have installed a DCT cooler (CSF, do88, etc) how much of a mess are we making to get the old cooler out? Drain trans first and that should help? I have an old washing machine pan that I stick under for these kinds of jobs but I imagine there will still be a good bit of fluid on the car too that needs to be cleaned up.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by MaximusB

I guess I need more camber this is my passenger front, worn outside edge. My car is stock ZCP with front camber max out.
These are RE71R with 5 track days on them. Passenger front (in photo) is by far the worse out of all. Drive front shows wear on the outside shoulder but not as bad as passenger front. Both rears are somewhat even with a bit more wear on outside shoulder.

Tried to get the two front tires flip over but no tire shop would touch it. They all said this particular tire is down to the inner core on the shoulder.

Would you guys suggest I just get a whole net set? Been wanting to try out the NT01. But kind of feel like a waste because the two rears still have lots of thread left and pretty even wear (although I'll still flip the tires side to side).

Yes, I would agree it is a waste because that tire is basically half-used if you ignore the camber wear. Looks like the car needs a camber kit and perhaps a minor adjustment to driving style as someone else mentioned.

Can you please post your most recent alignment? Camber is just one component of tire wear.

Buy two new fronts, there's no reason to throw out perfectly good rears.

Originally Posted by rhyary

Having gone thru the same dilemma as you are facing I offer few practical suggestions. Alas don't take my comments as expert advise:

You need new tires. The front do not need to match the rear. Get something. The cheaper the better.

Do not make a habit of running mismatched tires unless you are in a bind. I have done it once because it was either that or I'd lose the $300ish entry fee for not being able to drive that day.

[CorruptCommie]

Stop. Running. Mismatched. Tires.