I see a lot of threads popping up where Ralliart owners are taking their cars to the drag strip. Fine and dandy. I believe there is some good documentation on the Ralliart on how to handle the car to get the results you want when it comes time to line up at the tree.

But, where are all the road race/road course guys? To be honest, I could care less what this car does on the drag strip. What a terrible platform (and a waste) to use this car solely at the drag strip. I know some would love to argue this for the sake of arguing.

I've done 8 autocross events just to get my feet wet, and I'd love to progress further in my venture into motorsports. I've recently added some suspension and braking upgrades to the car and I'm itching to stretch to the limits of the car when it comes to traction. I just signed up for a track day coming up in two weeks, so we'll see how that goes.

I've been blessed to have several friends who are not only long time automotive enthusiasts, but long time road race enthusiasts. They've inspired me to follow in their tracks. They comment on how much support and feedback the Evolution community does for each other, and compares it to the Ralliart community. They believe many other communities, as well, have a much stronger camaraderie between each other and people are more reluctant to expose the mysticism surrounding their beloved platform, albeit the 3 series BMW, Subaru, etc., etc.

Honestly, I believe we need this more, this ideal of strong camaraderie. I've personally noticed, that a great deal of the 2009+ Ralliart community come from little to no background in the automotive culture. I'll tell you now, I fit in this demographic. This car opened so many doors for me, and I feel changed my life positively in a very drastic way.

I'd love to see some responses from the road race guys on the behaviors of the Ralliart on a road course. List up the mods you've done (if any at all), what track you went to, your experience level, and then some general or even specific responses to how the car composed itself. Do you guys even exist on this forum?

I apologize for being wordy, but this is my attempt to lure the more experienced enthusiast Ralliart owners from the fog.

 

Its funny I was thinking the very same thing yesterday. Im actually planning to do some autocross here in NJMP. I've tracked the car at the strip about 3 times already and having a 13 flat 1/4 time seems pretty solid to me for now. It's time to see how this handles with the twisties and Im assuming it will handle them quite well. Ive watched a few road race courses utilizing the Ralliarts and while the drivers in the videos do not understand the car like we do (thanks to the loads of info here at evom!), the Ralliart seems to come out near if not at the top.

Here at NJMP they had the only Lexus LFA in America run the course and Im hoping to do the same on that very course too! . Although it would be cool if we all had similar road courses to compare times to. I also would like to try rallying but maybe if I had another Ralliart to actually drive with lol

 

haven't done any track days or auto-xing yet. I'm waiting on suspension brakes wheel/tire, and sst cooler upgrades before i do any track days. I ~might~ do some auto-xing this summer depending.

The only thing i've done so far is canyon carving in my "back yard". The Angeles Forest Hwy and Angeles Crest Hwy are in the mountains behind where I live. They, so far, have proven to be loads of fun for me to go on a spirited drive on.

I've gotten throttle lift over steer a couple of times. However, both times that this happened, I forgot to turn ASC off, so the system came down hard on my like using a 20lb. sledge hammer to drive a nail in 1/4". Basically, the logic in the ASC system is too aggressive, when it starts detecting "unwanted" slip angles, it steps in w/ brakes and cutting of power, which is bad when your in throttle lift over steer, because the system is giving you more of what caused the slip angles to start in the first place, basically causing the car to over steer even more until all speed is bled off...

I've also had a pretty hairy experience w/ brake fade on the mountain roads, "late braking" into a hair pin, which has essentially caused me to back off on going out there so much. Familiarity w/ the roads leads to higher confidence, which often leads to higher speeds between turns, and harder use of the brakes... fading brakes on switch backs is not something you want...

Anyway, brakes are a main concern for me, especially for track days. So, I ~really~ want to upgrade those before I hit a road course. Wheels and tires are a major factor in the vehicle's braking ability as well. A BBK on stock wheels and tires will most likely reduce the chances of over heating the brakes, but the stopping distances won't be a whole lot better because you're still limited by the traction abilities of the stock rubber. For daily driving the stock brakes and rubber are fine, but on a track day, I doubt they'll last very long...

 

I've done 2 track days at Infineon Raceway. Those 2 days are my only experience at the track.

The first day I was completely stock except GST Basemap. Overall, it was a decent experience even though the tires didn't hold well, there was a lot of body roll and understeer, and the brakes started to fade throughout the day. However, I was eventually able to pass a Challenger. He was fast in the straights but wasn't very good in the corners.

The second day, I still had the GST basemap, but had upgraded the tires to Nitto NT05 235/40/18, OZ Ultraleggera 18x8 wheels, and lowered on Works springs. The car handled quite a bit better but still had quite a bit of understeer and the brakes were fading a lot. The last session of the day, I got the dreaded SLOW DOWN warning and the transmission was acting up. Shifts took like 3 seconds, it wouldn't let me accelerate very much so I just got off the track, ended my day, and let it cool down. It was fine later.

I haven't been able to go this year since I'm planning on some upgrades that I haven't been able to do. I've got an RRE transmission cooler made but haven't installed yet and I'm going to install the NFS BBK with the Z06 6 piston calipers. I also need new tires soon. I've already upgraded to the X turbo, X intercooler w/ LICP, and an ETS UICP.

Sorry for the quick, crude writeup. I'm at work.

 

I plan to track mine as well, going to Cayuga and then Mosport here in Ontario with a good friend of mine who also is an automotive journalist. However, I agree with the above statement. I'll need a brake upgrade and definately some suspension work before I venture out onto the track. Been watching NFSLancerRA's bbk thread with interest and have been thinking of going that direction. I've also been trying to decide on what direction I want to go with coilovers. Been looking at the Tein Flex, KW V2, and also watching Ryan Gates' JRZ project. I've also been looking into SST coolers as well.

Everyone adds power and drags our cars because it's easy to do and relatively safe compared to a road course, or even autox. Our cars are fairly easy to make power with and give fairly good drag times based on the price of the car. However, we lack the big brakes and aggressive suspensions/wheel/tire setups that come factory in the Evo, STi, M3, etc. These things make the car less tempting to bring to a track in stock form. Furthermore, proper upgrades for these parts aren't available through many manufacturers, and so we have very limited choices.

For example, our current selection of coilovers are either a) cheap, questionable in quality/reliability and meant for mainly street use, or b) more expensive, reliable but still meant for street. We don't even have proper racing coilovers available. If you figure you want to go springs + a good set of shocks, you can't find any.

That being said, we have a few members of EvoM who are working to resolve these issues. Hats off to those guys. When the products that they're developing become available, suddenly we'll have proper products with proper pricing. This is when we'll see the road racers come out.

Support the members here who are working to develop product! They're the ones who will push this platform forward.

 

I'm very interested to read your response after another track day with your current mods. I'd like to see how your TC-SST reacts, as well.

I've read plenty of other people's experiences in their Evo X MR and their TC-SST over-heating at the track, but then once in a while, I see a random post somewhere of someone who frequents open track days in their MR and have NO issues! But we rarely read about these guys on the forums.

Also, apparently, Whiteline has a Ralliart (or sponsors one) that competes in road racing! Where is their support on here, how come I never read about them in the Ralliart section of forums!

 

My Ralliart will definitely be hitting the road courses as often as possible. Im in the process of getting her prepped for the track.

First drives through my local canyon roads (Palos Verdes) were somewhat of a dissapointment. (I guess coming from an Evo IX RS I had some high standards.) The Ralliart had terrible understear and those rubber band tires were pretty sad.
Right away I got a set of megan street coilovers, front and rear sway bars, and some sticky NT-01's and this made a world of difference! I was absolutely blown away!
Soon I will be installing porterfield race pads, SS brake lines, motul brake fluid and then she will be ready for streets of willow on July 30th.

I would LOVE to see more RA's out on the road course.
Everyone should give it a shot.. Ive seen many hardcore drag racers switch over to road course after one event.

 

I'll join you if I can get my brakes and tranny cooler installed in time.

 

I'd recommend to any RA owner that is planning on tracking their car more then once or twice a year to invest in an engine oil cooler since the RA does not come with one.

The good news is that the Evo 10 oil cooler + tstat is a direct bolt on. You just have to figure out what to do with your windshield fluid bottle, or mount an aftermarket oil cooler in the front grill area.

 

AWESOME!
10-15 Evo's should be going to this event. Its going to be a very fun day!

 

I agree!
I was pretty bummed that the RA didn't come with an oil cooler from the factory....

 

I've been trying to find a decent used cooler for months. The best I could find was $200 on car-part, though, and I can get a new one for not much more than that... Have any laying around?

As far as road racing, I have yet to do that, but I have been to a few autoX events in the last two years now and my biggest issue is that I'm still too new at this. I have a tendency to not trust that the car will pull through and I end up riding the brakes and skidding around instead of letting the awd and the tires do the work.

I definitely need driver-mod more than anything at this point; though I can tell, on the few occations when I do manage to drive like I should, that the car definitely understeers way more than I'd like it to and a rear sway-bar upgrade is in order.

Stock struts and lowering springs aren't the most optimal either, but they do reduce body-roll a little from the stock setup. I'm waiting on that upgrade decision to see if anyone is ever going to make an adjustable OEM replacement shock (KYB AGX, etc.) or if I should just go full coil-over and be done with it. I'd like to be a bit different, just to see what other options are out there, but I feel like if I ever want to get more serious then a full coilover setup is in order.

I actually just recently had a chance to do some autoX in the rain, too, and I wanted to put together a write-up on that discussing the tires and whatnot, but when I have time I think I'll just put it up here. So, to be continued...

 

Well, I did it. Last week, I went to my first road course. The track was Waterford Hills in Waterford, Michigan. Apparently, it's a relatively technical track, with LOTS of areas of elevation changes. The day was overcast the entire time, almost no humidity, and around 72 degrees. The weather held out great.



My Ralliart did great, actually really great. I felt confident in the car. I began the day in the Novice run group. I learned the track in just a couple sessions, they had to bump me up to the intermediate run group.

The SLOW DOWN messages did not appear, for those experiencing a heart attack at the moment, reading this post; the transmission held up fine. But, I did just change out my trans. fluid about a month ago, so that helped a bit, I believe. My Nitto NT555 in 255/35/18 kept me on the track, in fact I felt I could have pushed them harder. My coilovers with my whiteline rear sway bar (set at the full hard setting) helped reduce the understeer and induce a bit of oversteer. I've got EBC Redstuff front pads (stock rotors and stock rear pads) with Motul brake fluid, and AMS Stainless Steel Brake Lines, and WOW, what a difference. Still not the performance I wanted, because my car has plenty of horses for this track, but little support for proper braking. I've got to jump on the brake upgrade NFSLancer is offering before the Summer's out, believe me you guys are going to need it.

I kept my eye on the engine temps, and no issues there, though I'm still going to do some research for getting an engine oil cooler on this car. I know I'm going to need it for those hot days on the track.

In two more weeks, I've got two track days back to back, and one of the tracks will be this one (Waterford Hills) with the Corvette Club and the other will be Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, Michigan with the Porsche Club. This will be the ultimate test, since Gingerman is much more open and fast, very fast

EDIT: Here's a quick photo I took with my phone of someone else lining up at the grid:

 

Congratulations toredifine on your first track day. Glad you finally made it out and everything went well.

Now, go beat those Corvette and Porsches

 

Whats the track length?