Couldn't have asked for a better day to hit the track, 70 degrees and blue skies. Put my car on the dyno at English Racing late on Friday night and made a couple quick timing tweaks to finalize the tune. It really smoothed out the torque curve - thanks JohnBradley for sticking around for late night dyno sessions.

This was my first time in the dry at PIR, and the first time running the chicane. With all the changes I made over the winter (wing, diffuser, spring rates, different tires) I was really just looking to do a shakedown and have a little fun. Mission accomplished. The car ran awesome all day without issues. The rear aero really made the car planted, and between that and the spring rate change it's much more stable. I didn't push too hard, or hard at all because I always just ran into Miatas all day long. I had maybe 4 clean laps all day.

Here is some video from the roof of the car, 2 of the 4 or so clean laps I got all day. The sound is crap and the exposure kinda blown out, but this was my first time using the camera like this. Speeds on the front and back straight are 135 mph.

http://www.vimeo.com/10349678

A guy got some really nice photos at the track as well, his gallery is here.
http://roadshowphotography.smugmug.c...15498922_drjtt

 

car looks good. thanks for always leaving us some interesting threads with cool pics

 

i still want that wing lol

nice video and pics

 

U suck We got like 6 inches of snow over the weekend

 

^^^Haha I knew the east coast guys would be bitter, enjoy your snow! It was an absolutely beautiful day. I just watched a video of a GT3 Cup car, I've got a good idea on how to run a real lap at pace now. Looking forward to heading back down there and actually letting it rip.

 

Thanks for sharing!! That track looks like it would be a blast to drive. Get back out there soon and let it rip. Make use of all that payment on the corner exits.

 

great write up, I always enjoy your posts.

haha, speak for yourself. it was 60 & sunny all weekend here in the NE and I TOO had my first track day o the year in the EVO so HA

 

I want to come up and have some fun

Thanks for the vids!

 

anything special hanging under the passenger doors? i saw a picture of your car on smugmug, makes me wish id have gone to PIR saturday instead of sunday.

 

That's the first thing I said after watching the video from the roof. I really wasn't tracking out or getting on the throttle that hard out of the corners. It was hard to get into a "drive-hard" mind-set when I always ran into Miatas at every stab of WOT, those laps on video were literally 2 of 4 clean-ish laps all day.

That's good to hear others are out getting the season started, we can all laugh at the guys still buried in snow

My wideband sensor was installed still from tuning, it was hanging out the door. Saturday was boss - Sunday was raining. Glad I went Saturday fo_sho.

 

What pressures you putting the R1's at now?

 

I'm on 265 R888's now. The R1's were hard as diamond and really slippery my last track day of the summer so I ditched them. I never really had a good feel for the R1's, mostly because the car was not setup well last year and the R1's that I got for $200 were old when I got them - live and learn. I'd like to try a fresh set at some point.

 

Did you log your rotor temps?

I believe you've got an underpanel & brake cooling ducts right?

 

I didn't log rotor temps. I wasn't on the brakes that hard at this track day because it was my first time in the dry there and I wasn't driving to hard, and because I never got going too fast with Miatas in the way.

With all this talk of 2" ducts aren't good etc i'm going to do some logging of with and without ducts (inlets taped off) and see what's up. I will probably just do it on the street with a bunch of repeatable stops, and not waste track time.