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My kind of thread! I've been running with NASA for about two years now and have about 20 track days under my belt with the Elise. I did one track day with my S2000 back in 2008 (with Animedork and his friend having the bachelor party at Willow Springs) and my most recent track day in May with the Boxster Spyder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcnTjhSbKlY The Spyder was goddamn amazing on the track. Once I came down from the high of driving it on track, I was a little pissed at how effortless it was to drive quickly compared to the Elise. I feel like I have to wring the neck of the Elise to get it to do what I want combined with the fact that it's brutal in every sense of the word. I ended up running identical lap times on the Spyder (using very crude timing) as I did with the Elise last year at Arizona Motorsport Park. Despite having 8.9lb/hp (compared to the Elise's 5.9lb/hp) it did incredibly well. Shows what can be done with a more modern suspension setup. With the Elise, I think having that much power in such a light car requires extremely sensitive steering and throttle inputs to keep it pointed in the right direction and get decent times. With the Spyder you don't have to be as careful and the extra torque really helps coming out of low speed corners. I recently added a huge 5-element diffuser to the Elise and will be adding a splitter and Nitron 1-way coilovers in the Phoenix off-season. I briefly considered a huge wing but the tracks around here aren't fast enough to justify drilling four holes in the fiberglass clam. What are you guys using for lap timers? I'm interested in using Harry's Laptimer Pro with a GPS add-on (http://www.amazon.com/Emprum-UltiMate-Receiver-desktop-computers/dp/B005I0JYUY).
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Jun 16, 2012 05:32
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Zoom Zoom, motherfuckers
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:22 |
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c355n4 posted:They don't run AMB transponders for you guys? Yeah you can rent them but it seems like a crappy solution for an HPDE driver. From what I can tell you can only see your times after the session when they print it out. I want something that can display my last lap and let me see sector times after the session. Also I'm cheap so I don't want to pay for a full-blown unit. The one standalone unit I looked into was not that impressive. It didn't have track maps stored on the device so you had to drive the track to "teach" it the layout and it touted a color screen as an awesome new feature. I'm sure the AMB transponders are required for TT/race group but I have no interest in that at the moment.
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Jun 16, 2012 05:56
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nm posted:Visors fog up. I can't understand why anyone would want to use an open face helmet at any time. Around here you're required to run with the windows down, I'd imagine any HPDE is like that. We had one guy catch a small rock in his left eye, it was pretty nasty. Luckily he didn't lose vision but he was sporting an eye patch for a couple months. The first and third points are covered by buying a quality helmet. I used an old POS Snell 2000 helmet for the first two years of HPDE and I hated it. The visor fogged up, I had to wear sunglasses, and it just wasn't comfortable. This year I bought an HJC AR-10II (Snell 2010) for $310 and it's a night and day difference. I also bought the tinted visor to go with it. I can now run with the visor down, not have to dick with sunglasses, and it has yet to fog up on me during a session with the visor all the way down. I got it from soloracer.com (http://www.soloracer.com/hjcar10ii.html) and they throw in a free helmet bag with it. Highly recommended.
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Jun 19, 2012 05:25
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Admirable Gusto posted:Well with NASA I believe you're allowed to compete in time trial with just a fire extinguisher, but you need a cage for wheel to wheel. As to your second question, after 22 or 23 track days I very much regret having to compromise. I would probably be better off financially with a spec miata and a separate DD, and happier without having to constantly worry about crashing my one (moderately nice) car at the track I agree with this 100%. I've been tracking the Elise for about two years now and I've spent an embarrassing amount of money on it. If I had to do it again I'd go with a spec class and just enjoy the poo poo out of competing with other drivers and their skill rather than their wallets. It would also mean I'd have a truck by now and those tend to come in handy every once in a while.
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Jun 19, 2012 06:55
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I've had more problems with those compressors killing my 12v source in my cars.
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Jun 21, 2012 17:25
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aventari posted:For air I just bring a quality bicycle hand pump. Everyone laughs, but I can pump up tires about 5-10x faster than those lovely 12v compressors and it's a cheaper and more useful than a small tank. drat, I didn't know that would work. Anything on Amazon that you would consider a quality pump? I swear... I started off my track days with a helmet and a tire pressure gauge. I'm running out of room to store all of this extra poo poo in the car.
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Jun 22, 2012 08:03
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:22 |
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Admirable Gusto posted:So here's my conundrum - the engine in my car suffers from oil starvation issues. It's bad enough that I don't run anything stickier than stock (stock is PS2s/RE050As in this case), refuse to put on suspension mods of any sort, and short shift round sustained high-G turns (e.g. the banking at Auto Club, the carousel at Don't try to drive around oil starvation issues. Buy a baffled oil pan, it's a lot cheaper than paying for a rebuilt Porsche engine. If you're serious about doing more than a few track days or even just want to get the most out of what you have, do it right. I had to get a baffled oil pan and a fuel surge tank to tackle the oil and fuel starvation problems inherent with the Elise. Seems odd given the nature of the car but it's the cost of doing business sometimes. I would also look into an intermediate shaft upgrade like the one here: http://www.lnengineering.com/ims.html. Again, $600 plus installation is a lot cheaper than 15-20k for a remanufactured engine. Edit: I'm really banking on the new 9A1 DFI engine in the Boxster not having these issues. They moved away from the IMS bearing design and added an integrated dry sump so here's hoping... quote:Or perhaps it's time to say gently caress it and get a dedicated track car There's a huge gap between tracking a car with some light mods and a full on track car. You can have plenty of fun with the car as it sits. That said, if I had to do it all over again I'd find 3 or 4 other people to run Spec Miatas with. Racing with your wallet sucks, having (somewhat) equal machinery between friends would be amazing fun. Pr0kjayhawk fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Jul 13, 2012 |
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Jul 13, 2012 06:06
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