I just wanted to share some experiences with how my Evo X faired at the May 24/25th HPDE event down at Watkins Glen earlier this week. I was coming down off a high placing well at the One Lap event and wanted to see what the car could do at my home track by pushing it a bit harder without breaking anything. Well at the end of my first video I found the one weakness the car might have and did a small off track detour but it wasn't anything too major. Luckily they had just revamped Watkins Glen for safety and areas that were gravel traps were now paved over with improved safety walls set in place in case the paved run off areas weren't enough to recover.

It seems that while the threshold braking is amazing with the Girodisc 2 piece front rotors and Rabyestos ST-43 pads, even the Yokohama AD08 have their limits for traction when on the binders hard. At Watkins Glen there seems to be numerous braking zones that are downhill, and once the ABS engages fully, it really doesn't slow the car down nearly as well when compared to threshold braking where the ABS is just about to kick in. What caught me off guard at times was when I would get a late pass point bye in the black (advanced) run group, most of the cars weren't lifting as we approached the turn so being stuck passing offline meant I had to extend my braking zone into the apex of the turn, make corrections at the apex based on how early I entered, and then power out with relative safety if I did it right.



When I really stomped on the brakes and got full ABS to kick in, the car became very greasy and didn't want to rotate very well at all when at the limits. I had the ASC turned off one touch which meant at least the power was not being cut, but the ABS were supposed to still be there to assist in steering the car to where I had the wheel pointed which didn't always seem to be the case. It seemed that if the system was overwhelmed it would just understeer and kick in antilocks so much that I likely had to let off the brakes, correct the angle, and then get on them again in order to make it work. I probably could have also gotten on the power and power drifted the car around the turns when overcooked but figured it should work with using braking control as well. I experimented with turning the ASC off for 5 second push so that the ABS assist for turning was off as well but never got into a situation where I could definitively say it made the difference.

Last year I vividly remembered that the Porsche GT3's were about equal on the track for power, braking, and handling where as a certain black 2007 Z06 driven by a nice guy named David was tearing up the track when he had race rubber and most everyone else was on steet tires. Well this year with the Coilovers, stickier street tires, and possibly slightly better driving I noticed a change. While the power on the straights was still similar since I detuned the car to around 500 crank hp at 25 psi, I could outbrake those GT3's and easily turn inside of them in the corners now. The Z06 that I attempted to pace last year which warped my brakes after 1 lap overdriving the car was now within sight for a couple laps, and by the last session of the 2nd day I was able to keep pace doing 2:15 laps and the car seemed to hold up fine without any worries. After talking it seems that when he gets a clean lap he can lap around 2:10 or slightly better so my next goal will be to tweak a few things to see if I can pull that pace off on a street tire setup through increased reliable power (~650 crank HP goal), wider street tires (295mm?), and possibly a few suspension changes.

Overall the BC Racing ER series coilovers performed quite well and I increased the stiffness of my shocks bound (compression) and rebound to a stiffer 20 (of 30) setting all around with a few tweaks after that. Overall the car had minimal tire rollover on those settings with the -2.5* front and -1.5* rear camber settings and the stiffer shock setup. Still you could really toss the car around and not have any worries that the car would suddely experience snap oversteer, and besides the ABS taking over control at times, the car turned in amazingly well for 20+ minutes of track time and allowed accurate vehicle placement without having to muscle the car. As I pushed the limits a bit more on the 2nd day, I started learning the technique to get more bite out of the tires where you release the wheel and turn in again. The only places the car felt a bit dangerous was up the esses so I was still letting off slightly and boosting 20 psi until the car felt more settled before powering up to the back straight where I was reaching 145-150mph before getting on the binders at the 400 ft mark leading into the bus stop.

The only major issue I had was fuel starvation, and with the new found handling and more aggressive cornering it turns out that a 2nd session is not possible without topping off the tank since the left hand exit from the off camber turn 9 caused fuel starvation I would rather not experience again. Luckily I brought my 5 gallon fuel tank and just refilled that when making my mid day refueling trip in town. Plans are to get a fuel surge tank setup in place along with a 400 LPH fuel pump matched to the Deatschwerks 1500cc injectors I have yet to install. Basically at 7 MPG I go through about 1 gallon of fuel every two laps at Watkins Glen long course (3.4 miles) and that means after 12 laps (~27 minutes) the car is approaching half a tank of fuel.

I've got about 50 minutes of in car video footage from the various sessions over the 2 day HPDE and tried to list a brief summary under each video. The first one has the most traffic where I must have passed over 20 cars during the entire session and the last video shows that Z06 on race rubber that I'm keeping pace with just barely. So go to full screen mode and turn up the sound because it's "almost" as good as being there yourself.

You'll have to double click the videos to enter youtube in order to see the full descriptions.

Day 1 - Session 3 (Heavy Traffic, passing 15 cars in this 10 min clip) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-kVG3NztB8

Day 1 - Session 4 (Passing Steve’s near stock Evo X on back stretch, caught silver Z06) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GQbZdPC8qY

Day 2 - Session 1 (Late Passing Exercise with Steve at start, later doing some 2:16 laps) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28f7q132Uaw

Day 2 - Session 2 (4 wheel drifts down the chute and late passing practice) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErUs2Nqgp8Q

Day 2 - Session 3 (Pacing Black Z06 through traffic with around 2:15 lap times) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbstHBTi5ko

 

Nice write up, great driving, looks like you had a fun time

 

Oh it was a total blast! We've already got 7 people going to the Fall PCA event on October 11th/12th with plenty of slots still open if anyone is thinking about a track day at one of the best road courses in the country.

Gray Evo X (mine)
Red Toyota Supra twin turbo (Mike)
Red Nissan GTR (Collins)
Black Evo X (Steve)
Rally painted Galant VR4 (Tim)
Gray Evo 9 (Sean)
Black Subaru Legacy GT (Scott)

http://www.niagarapca.org/pages/7

As for driving, after going over a few things watching the videos I plan on doing a few tweaks to corner entry and braking to see if I can avoid that ABS lockup at the wrong time. My goal is to make a few driving tweaks along with a few changes to power and suspension to allow 2:10 lap times on street tires. It won't be easy but it's my goal.

 

FWIW, I've heard of C6 Z06s turning laps in the 2:01 range.

 

Indeed, that guy David that had the Black Z06 mentioned that a pair of race prepped Z06's on race rubber were doing around 2:03 lap times. So a bit of power, suspension, and the right driver makes those machines fly around a road course like WGI. On street tires I think they would be quite a bit slower and unable to lay down the power very well.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience, knowledge and self-critiques. Turn 9+10 together = fuel starvation?

 

I would love to join you at watkins but I dont think that my car or my driving skill are up to par to hit a track anytime soon. Thats why I stick to autocross im bone stock with only one year of autocross under my belt

 

NP, mainly going WOT at the turn 9 exit was enough to cause fuel cut after a few seconds of WOT when I attempted the 2nd seession on the first day without refueling. I remember last year that the knocklite would show trickle knock on exit due to the fuel pressure falling off, well this year it literally fuel cut at one point so there is no getting around coming up with a fuel surge tank solution.

 

Sweet car and driving.....That is the evo in it's element imo. Love to see cars that cost twice as much being left in the dust..You should try a lap with the traction in off off ( hold button for 3 or so seconds) I wonder if it would help with the abs or not?

 

It's never a bad time to start learning, the PCA will take drivers of all levels and have an instructor in the car for the green run group to help build your confidence. They won't let (or force) you to go faster than what is safe for your car and skill level so don't let that hold you back. My friend Steve was still passing quite a few cars with great driving in his near stock Evo X, basically it just has a safe tune (no wideband) and he still manages around a 2:25 lap time with traffic.

As for car prep the most important thing is to have a good set of track pads or at least dual purpose intermediate pads. Stock pads will burn up too fast once you start pushing the car harder and can become downright dangerous. I like the Raybestos ST-43 pads since they typically only wear down .5mm-1mm per track day depending on how fast and aggressive you are pushing them. My first set lasted 8 track days total plus the entire one lap trip which I think was pretty amazing.

 

Yeah it's no Ryan Gates Evo X but it still holds it's own against those more expensive cars.

I'll definitely try and compare the single ASC off versus the 5 sec hold down that turns off the ABS assist for turn in. I tested it for a few laps on the 2nd day but never got into a panic stop situation where I could see if it made a difference or not. Maybe with no traffic around me I can just brake 50-100' early for a turn and intentionally trigger the ABS with a heavy braking foot and see if it helps having it fully off when trying to turn in.

 

Awesome write up! I too was curious why there seems to be a lack in the motorsports section. I came from the Suby world and its more focused in this area, glad to see you putting the car through its paces!

 

Awesome write-up and videos! I also appreciate the link in the Evo General section as I was unaware of this section, period!

I'd love to drive up and watch you all or just take a spin in your car (right seat of course)! I'm not doing anything to void my warranty so my car will watch from the sidelines for another 2 years but I'll have plenty of $$ stored up by then and really soup it up so my car (probably not my ability) could hold it's own!

How'd you mount your camera?

 

Glad to open some eyes.

I'm not allowed to take any passengers yet, but some of my friends that have been doing this for a while are instructors that can take passengers.

As for that camera mount, I had some aluminum stock laying around the day before I left for the One Lap trip and was faced with coming up with a mount solution. I grabbed a couple proper diameter bolts, drilled holes and used nuts to clamp onto the aluminum plate I cut out. This slides right into the center rear seat headrest mount and the height adjuster locks it into place on the driver's side. On the passenger side bolt there was a bit more play so I wrapped the bolt threads a couple times with some blue painters tape and it fit snug with no movement. I haven't tested the other headrest positions but I would imagine that it would fit on the passenger rear and driver rear seat locations as well for different angles.

For the camera itself I just drilled a hole in the aluminum plate and found a screw that would be the right thread to mount it. It worked out better then I could have ever wildly predicted, I may just have a bunch welded up to spec and made, LOL.

 

Porsche guys look like they're just enjoying a sunday drive around the track. One of the red gt3's looked as though he wanted to play a little bit but once he realized he wasn't pulling away from you just shut it down and conceded.