Fellow track junkies, I'm interested in how track time factors into your fluid change intervals. If a specific example would help, here my situation. I just did an oil change at 7500 miles before running two days at Road America (April 7 & 8). The car now has 8500 or so miles on it. I'm leaving Friday of this week to drive to MAM for another 1-day event. Would you: change oil and filter before going, change oil but leave the filter alone (K & N 1010), change all fluids after every event (oil, filter, tranny, transfer case & LSD). For those of you with a few more years on your Evo's, what have you found to work best? Thanks

 

oil, filter & brake fluid before each event weekend.

tranny, tc & diff not so often.

car is still alive.

n

 

oil every 2, brake fluid bleed, if the last day was hard (flush)

I do a coolant flush every 3-4 months as it's cake to do, and run 70/30 (water to coolant) + wetter.

Rest of the fluids are stock, car is alive, has survived 8 events, at the end of the year, i'll probably do the tranny/acd style flush

 

i run an average of 1 event per month
5k miles or 2 events for oil, filter every other (oem)
brake fluid bleed when necessary, easy enough to do at the track, plus there are plenty of helpers
tranny will probably get done yearly, same with coolant

 

I just move all the intervals up. I change my oil every 2k miles. Tranny/t-case/rear diff every 6k. Bleed brakes before every event. Flush every 3-4 events.

 

I try to do motor oil before every event.

I also try to run 1 bottle of Motul through the system before every event. I have 2 one gallon milk jugs full of used Motul to show for it.

Tranny / TC / Rear diff every 10k so far.

Radiator flush every 20k although I am am going to do that every season now because I have nice floating rust bits in it. Thank you water wetter.

 

Change your spark plugs regularly too. If you run 7s, change them after every track day. If you run 8s, every 2-3 track days.

Change gear oil every 5 track days or so.

Also consider that wear and tear on the track increases exponentially as the driver improves and makes faster laptimes. A newbie doesn't need as much preventative maintenace as Fangio.

 

every 2 event i do one brake flush... my events are three days each.

I bleed between events

Oil every event since its turbo

On my BMW same oil almost all season. Talk about NA cheap maintenances

 

+561243125.

i almost long for the slow days where you just drive and roast some street tires, and call it a day

 

Actually I believe I am much easier on tires now that I am smoother and faster then when I was a newbie overdriving the car.

 

That hasn't been my experience. When I first started running RA-1s about 16 months ago, a set would last me twice as long as they do now, and my lap times have gotten substantially faster during that time. For one thing, I use the berms more than I used to when I drove more conservatively, and that really chews up tires.

Plus, if you are really testing your abilities, you will take the occasional spin. I have spun a couple of times on the pavement without going off track at my last few events. That was enough to flat spot (and quickly cord) a full set of RA-1s.

 

yea but you also drive that dust bowl / ghetto / gokart track Streets of willow springs.


How many events do your RA1's last? 6 so far for me. I don't find using berms to chew my tires up that much, are you driving on them all the time or something?

I think it really has to do with the tracks as well. Thunderhill is pretty well maintained. I think Streets of willow and buttonwillow wear tires much faster.

No, that's called overdriving the car IMO.

I haven't spun in over a year. (knock on wood) I'm not a slow newbie either, 2:05 over the top at thill.

 

Buttonwillow is maintained much better than Streets of Willow or the Big Track at Willow Springs.

I always pick up tons of rubber off the track at SOW, especially on the inner 1/3 of the rear tires, which don't work as hard. After a long day at Buttonwillow last month, my RA-1s were clean. I think I used to get 8 track days on RA-1s. and now it's more like 4 or 5.

If you really want to chew tires, go to Reno Fernley (original configuration). I think the original 2.2 mile config. at Spring Mtn. is hard on tires too, but EVOs just own there.

 

I didn't find that Reno ate my tires any faster than Thunderhill did. But I drove it after it was repaved. I found that track to be a very nice and flowing track and didn't really overwork my tires except for the "toliet bowl" section.

 

Some of the old berms at Reno were like really jagged concrete -- I think it's turn 7 with the right hand side berm/torture device that really does it, plus the washboard surface on the back straight, but I think they have repaired that too. I haven't driven the new 4 mile track yet.