Is our suspension setup correctly by aftermarket strut MFR's? Is the bias correct?

[CoopKill]

Just by changing out the brake fluid skews the results, does it not?

[J. Fast]

No, not at all. I ran a full session for 20 minutes and lost brakes just inside of turn 11 on the checkered flag lap. There was enough time in the session to compile useful data... such as tire contact patch, rotor temperatures, tire temperatures, and lap times. Here's my tire contact patch from session number 1. As you guys can see I was giving away 10% of my overall tire contact. You can see how I was folding the tire onto the shoulder and giving away 5/8 of the tread wear area and trading it for the shoulder. Notice the tire wear on the shoulder is also lower than the optimized tread wear tire contact patch triangle on the tire. A little hint here for those guys not familiar with racing... the little triangles on the shoulder of your tires... those are optimum tire contact patch markers. You adjust your suspension to wear inside the marker. You use inner and outer tire temps and get them as close together as possible and then cross reference the tire markers to evaluate your tire contact which translates to effective grip. Session #1 tire patch... This was mid day with more spring tweaking... ...and then I finally got it right after 8 sessions. Now it's done. This tire and suspension combination has been optimized for ideal tire contact patch. Only fine tuning is required in the future. I shrunk the tire roll patch to just over 1/8", the wear signature is on the optimized grip triangle and the inner and outer tire temps are near identical. Only took 130 laps to figure it out LOL... Let the tires tell you where to make your suspension adjustments . Grip is fast and slip is rollerskates.

[familyMAN]

Where'd you end up on camber front and rear?

[Erron Spalsbury]

Very cool! I never saw a reply from ya so I didn't think you were going or I would have come to help!

Tires look good! A few things that come to mind from what I've seen. Did you pull tire pressures? I used to get a 30 psi change from a hot Sumitomo HTRZ2. It made the tire look like it was wearing properly but I was riding the middle quite a bit more. Keep in mind that you'll bend a slick quite a bit more from both the additional traction level and slip angle differences. I found that with a slick I need about 2-3 degrees more camber.

How did the coolant temps go? Boil over at all? I found the stock Mitsu gauge to be a big POS. I've tested 2 so far, the one I had in the car and a spare. One stops at 195 degrees and the other at 197~ish degrees. (using a thermometer that's made for cooking candy on a range top of all things) I couldn't get a good read with the IR pyro, too much shiny in the pan to work correctly.

What were you using for track times out there? Any vids or pics?

[Nihil]

I'm flat-bottoming and sealing off the engine bay on Saturday with an .063 aluminum sheet.

I've thought about doing that with my car as well, to improve cooling and also keep splash/debri to a minimum since it's a DD...curious to see what you come up with and would like to hear ideas. I was thinking of a vent at the rear end of the engine bay with a channel funneling to the rear turbo, in hopes to pull from the cowl, down the firewall past the turbo and on out the bottom of the bay.

So J. what is your final optimum setup then? 600lb 50/50 with fine tuning? That's an 11kg spring? What were your fine tunnings? Looks like I'll be going with a 50/50 split for sure, when I get to upgrading my suspension.

[J. Fast]

Where'd you end up on camber front and rear?

I added two degrees in front and a degree and a half in the rear.

[J. Fast]

Very cool! I never saw a reply from ya so I didn't think you were going or I would have come to help!

Tires look good! A few things that come to mind from what I've seen. Did you pull tire pressures? I used to get a 30 psi change from a hot Sumitomo HTRZ2. It made the tire look like it was wearing properly but I was riding the middle quite a bit more. Keep in mind that you'll bend a slick quite a bit more from both the additional traction level and slip angle differences. I found that with a slick I need about 2-3 degrees more camber. I sure could use your help on Sunday man

How did the coolant temps go? Boil over at all? I found the stock Mitsu gauge to be a big POS. I've tested 2 so far, the one I had in the car and a spare. One stops at 195 degrees and the other at 197~ish degrees. (using a thermometer that's made for cooking candy son a range top of all things) I couldn't get a good read with the IR pyro, too much shiny in the pan to work correctly.

What were you using for track times out there? Any vids or pics?

I sure could use your help on Sunday man!
I was using every bit of the 40 minute break to measure this and measure that and adjust. here and and there to get springs swapped. I never experienced any problems with overheating and I decided to revert back to the OEM hood. I did in fact have a piece of aluminum light installed to flat bottom the nose of the car all the way to the firewall. We had a beacon set up that we were pinginig lap times of off. My lap times were pretty consistent around 2:04 without tearing up the tires too much. I did in fact lose 3rd gear entirely around 4 o'clock. The secret to your boil over problem is capacity. Add another gallon or two of coolant. It will take longer to revisit a slice of and give you more time on the track. As you know, I'm using a NASCAR radiator and no fan. It even worked with a stock hood

[mehrshadvr4]

Oh, and no the overheating is still there unfortunately. I know what it is, I've just been reluctant to actually do it.

I was thinking about our radiator and I don't think the setup on our radiator is that good of an design. I'm looking to build a custom radiator for my car where it's dual pass instead on our .75 pass which it's how it seems to be lol. Look at this radiator here. The design is awesome. The coolant doesn't just drop down like factory and some hot coolant actually could reach the radiator outlet. In this design as you can tell the coolant goes horizontally from one side through half the radiator and drops down on the other end and comes back horizontally again to the same side it started from the other half of radiator. this should give plenty of time for coolant to cool down before going back to the engine. The only modification you need to do here is to cut and turn the upper radiator hose/ pipe 180 degree.

[J. Fast]

Lol... Good idea

[mehrshadvr4]

Where did you get that bad boy? I'm actually talking to someone who can make a bolt on one for my car and he can offer upper pipe also if anyone is interested. I already have upper hard pipe from IPS so I'll just need to cut that and weld it again with the end turning 180 degree to face the other way. Maybe we can get couple people interested in this so we can run a group buy on these?