First (two) trackdays of the year. Suspension mods pays off!!
I attended both the thttp://www.trackday.no and NSK trackday in april with great success.
The trackday.no event was blessed with nice dry weather and few cars on the track which meant perfect conditions for chasing lap times.
I managed a best of 1:45,5 which is a 7 second improvement over the 1:52 with stock setup. My guess is 4 of those seconds are tires/suspension alone, 1-2 seconds driving and maybe 1 second header/midpipe. The handling is now simply fantastic!
My reference lap is the 1.49 with the N/A MSM setup on 225 R888. The graphs clearly shows that the MSM had more power and speed but the NC just owns it in every corner. I could not be more happy with the RPF1/R888/Hotchkis/KW3 combo. The grip is amazing combined with a very neutral and settled handling even over the harshest curbs. Remember this is with the stock bushings and no aero. Ride quality to the track is as also top notch with stock back box and the KW3.
I now have about 30% less inner fenders in the front and I also had to do some additional fender rolling in the pits due to rubbing. ET35 is a bit too much wheel. 245” on 9” ET45 would be a better setup imho. My fenders agree.
What really amazes me is how fast the car is with such a sloppy engine. I mostly use 2 and 3 on the track thanks to the 128hp welfare class 1.8 combined with the 4.1 and 5-speed. This is not a good combo with such modest power. The most irritating thing with low power is that I’m not able to pass bad drivers with powerful cars as they will smoke my ass on the straights and then drive/brake like grannies trough the twisty parts.
The header and midpipe did nothing for performance. I can’t feel any difference trough the butt dyno. The sound is crisper but still pretty dull. I was hoping that it would gain at least some hp and change of character on top but the stock ECU does a fantastic job of spoiling all the potential.
My main priorities before next trackday will be to do some ECU tweaking. Ignition tables will get a thorough makeover. 33 deg advance here I come.
The NSK trackday was fun the first 30 min before the rain started. I can confirm that the DCS and ABS is pretty much the same with the new suspension. Rainy trackdays are boring. The low power and open diff doesn’t help either. To top it off I managed to get a speeding ticket costing me 8K NOK 1km from my hose. See picture further down.
Some pics taken by others.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Comments