Just had my first PDX in StL at Gateway... Let me tell you, I'm hooked! I've never had so much fun in a car! I have no desire to drag race again. Seriously thinking about making the supra a more road race friendly car once I get some more experience under my belt. All in all, I had about 1 hour and 40 minutes of seat time over the whole day of 5 sessions. My evo 9 is stock other then BOV, shifter, and TBE. Still has factory air box even! I was very disappointed with brake fade, so that will be addressed before I go back again. I'm pretty sure it has autozone pads and ebay rotors (previous owner). The rest of the car was awesome! I wish 4th gear was longer... I was topping it out mid way through the straight but did not want to get into 5th (I know... noob).

Here are some pics. My evo, a buddy's stock Mazada 3 speed, and a buddy's bpu ish 350z on R compounds went up.
















































The road master was on R's all around and was handing it to people in the adv group! had a t56 with shifter just rocking out through a hole in the floor!

I can't wait to go again!

 

nice, what brake fluid did you use? oem? I hope not.

 

I assume OEM... I've never changed it.
It is on my to do list along with pads and braided lines. another evo driver there in the adv group was raving about the brake cooling ducts from AMS... will prob get those too and call it a day. Had more then enough power being stock ish.

 

next time get some Motul I bet you had no brakes after few laps.

SS lines, Power stop rottors, performance friction pads, motul fluid and alignment, coilovers and good set of tires, (Stock OEM tires are fine)

Stock evo with few bolt ons is enough for the track

 

Are you going to be running in a particular class? You may want to check what you can and cannot do to your car and stay qualified for that class you want to run in. For break fluid, I've heard good things about Motul. I can only speak for experience on the OEM (suckage) and the Endless fluids. I've pretty much decided to stick to Endless for pads and fluid. At least for the time being. Good stuff in my opinion. What tires your running? If you want some more grip, I'd recommend the Dunlop Star Specs (it's the hot/fast tire as of late) or the RE-01Rs. The Falken RT-615s are a really good bang for the buck - I'm running them now - but if you go that route, be aware, they heat up after a while and tend to get a bit on the greasy side. A good tire none the less. Have fun out there and good luck Oh, and if that track keeps you in 4th alot and you're running an MR, watch the heat build up on the tranny.

 

props for getting out there but you're a brave man going out there not knowing what you were running.

like everyone else said, pads, good fluid, and unless your rotors have a lot of miles on them you should be good to go.

 

Congrats and happy to hear you had a great time!

Sorry to hear you had brake issues. I did the first time out as well and for that reason tell everyone that the biggest priority prior to hitting the track is to make sure your brakes are good to go. It's actually priorities 1-4 in my book but hey.

Fix the brakes, sell the Supra and get back out there!

 

If you left it in 4th on the main straight; you shouldn't have had to brake into T1 - that's why you had pad fade! lol.

Nah, good to hear you made it out. If I didn't have other plans I would have been there instructing this weekend as well. I think first-timers tend to have brake issues because they ride the brakes; my students usually do. Brake hard and release - it's much easier on the whole system.

 

umm... yep. hit that one on the head.

I would stab the brakes at the first braking cone refernce let off by the last, take turn 1 (the slight corner), brake hard and down shift to 3rd to take turn 2. Noob with no ***** I guess



Back to the brakes... this was a PDX, no competition. The pads had plenty of meat, the fluid looked fine, and it acted normal on the streets. So I thought I Was fine. This 1st experience has taught me a ton!

 

You and the car are home safe so it was a good day.

I know for myself I just had NO idea how little I understood about how stressed my car and brakes would be once on the track. As such I thought the same as you but learned from the experience.

Its just all but impossible to stress your brakes on the street as much as you can at even a lazy track day. Now that i am getting fast and pushing harder I am finding the limits of the stock system and am looking at other options.

 

lol, regarding tracking an unknown car:

I bought a "prepped" car and took it straight to the track (after changing/bleeding all the fluids).

I was having terrible brake problems. 4000+lb cars were outbraking me handily (my car is 2375 with gas, no driver). I almost passed some cars trying to brake.

I was checking the brake booster, everything, trying to figure out what was wrong. Finally I got pissed and bought some hawk blues trackside and slapped them on. Turns out I had been on stock honda brake pads, not HP+ as the previous owner had told me. the pads were completely melted/broken/glazed after my first two "pussyfooting-around" sessions.

The Hawk blues totally fixed that. even slight pedal pressure now tries to put me through the windshield. I brake 100+ feet later than the heavy cars now, in some places.

+1 for knowing your car BEFORE you track it.

 

Swapping the pads for somemore aggresive ones, and changing to a better brake flid should do the job, it was a night and day difference for me.

 

"Hooked" indeed. Be prepared to spend every spare minute and every spare dollar (and then some) on you new hobby. Welcome!