street car gone road race

So my buddy wanted to do this initially. He was saying the exact same thing as you. And it definitely makes sense BUT as jsmith mentioned, right away I was thinking of leaking, and hose routing. Both of those things would be a real nightmare.

My plan for the hood scoop is to go with a vent from this guy here, https://m.facebook.com/JCSpeedWorks/

a few of the track focused ms3 guys mentioned it made a significant difference for bats and coolant temps on their cars and it makes sense. Venting will definitely help. Just need to see how willing I am to cut up my hood

 

You could try a simple block off to the hood scoop before you go all slicey slicey.

Could you route water up that high? It'd be more complicated than just the routing and mounting, but surface area in airflow is pretty limited.

 

Hmm yea I’m not too sure on that.

I keep forgetting to try and block off my hood scoop but next track day I’ll bring some tape and give it a try. Interested to see what happens

 

It should improve the pressure differential across the radiator

 

We will see how much I guess. And how it improves temps. Hopefully a little bit

 

just recently got on oil report back from the lab.

using redline 5w40 oil, 4000 street km's of driving, and 2 full track days where the oil saw a lot of 280f+ temperatures. i guess this report is decent?

 

Jeez that oil cooler is huge! Question, is an upgraded TMIC going to have significantly higher BAT' s while in motion than a FMIC setup? I'm new to modding car's, I was under the impression the tmic heat soaked like crazy while sitting still, making it less than ideal for getting off the line quickly, but I'd assume its probably not too bad once you get moving? Also, in your sandwich plate pic, what's the thick orange hose running beneath the oil pan?

 

So my buddy is running an upgraded top mount and his bats are perfect on track. While driving in stop in go, or slowly through the streets bats won’t be great and it’ll heat soak a lot quicker and easier then a fmic, but if you plan to keep power at or around 400whp I believe a good tmic will be plenty. Specially if you have a Gen2 with the nice good scoop.

the orange hose you’re seeing is for my brake ducts. More about those earlier on in this thread.

 

That's good to hear! I'll have to check out your brake ducting. And I'd definitely be interested to see how much of a difference an aftermarket mesh grill would make.

 

updatesssssssssss

last weekend, i went to the track with my MS6 buddy, to pit crew for him as this was his first time ever getting on track. the car is a basic bolt on ko4 car, had some continental DWS all season tires, cheap coilovers, and hawk dtc-60 brake pads. very basic car, just wanted to get my buddy comfortable and doing some clean laps.

well...he got about 5 total laps till this happened...


we were out for a lap, just put putting around, i was giving him some basic instruction(more like yelling at him "BRAKE, DOWNSHIFT, TURN IN, POWER POWER POWER" lol...but yea we weren't really pushing too hard, the tires were in good shape, lots of tread. NEVER EVER seen a tire come apart like this. happened on the slower part of the track luckily and we limped it off. sad to say that ended the day at 10am. damn.


REDEMPTION!!
we went to the track again this past weekend, this time the ms6 had a new set of wheels, and brand new fire hawk indy 500's(i was real impressed by the grip of these for what they are)
he was back at it again, and this time i had my instructor buddy come out and give him some lessons. the results were impressive. that car was flying, he was doing solid all day. needs alot more seat time still but yea damn, good job!


as for my car, it was gripping and rotating like unbelievably well. RE71r tires...the grip is truly immense. the bilsteins were working as they should, and doing an amazing job. i honestly cant say the car has ever felt better. rear end was loose and could be steered by lifting or braking. with no input the car was over steering which is fantastic. i was hauling some serious ass. unfortunately i didnt time myself as it was more a day to get my ms6 buddy setup and lapping but i definitely should have.

my ms6 buddy brought a generator and some fans. this helped massively for cooling down after some hot laps.


i was melting the shit out of my brakes. one of my ducts is broken and needs some repair, and i was also braking later and harder then i was ever before. i got the mushy pedal a few times, which i havent had since before the brake ducts went it, but again, pushing harder, reaching the limits. BBK time? soon...

fans helped bring my brakes back in between sessions. what a life saver


something else i noticed more is the lack of power when BATs go through the roof. with the oil cooler in front of my fmic its killing my BATs and killing my power on track. this will get sorted over the off season. i also seem to be developing an exhaust leak somewhere. i checked everything south of my downpipe and it seems ok, waste gate seems to be solid, so im thinking its either turbo to manifold, or downpipe to turbo, or even a crack in the manifold. my spool has been slower then usual lately, not sure if thats due to increased BATs or an exhaust leak. oil temps/coolant temps were doing really well though, never saw oil over 250f peak, oil seemed to live around 230-240, and coolant was living around 220. beauty!

Also took my instructor buddy around for a few laps, he mentioned how much better my bils feel vs his custom sprung BCs...i cant say i didnt expect that but its nice to hear as i was pretty close to pulling the trigger on some BCs.

footage of me and my buddy following around the ms6, giving our input on his driving. the ms6 was doing amazingly well though. good job Nick!!

 

What exactly do you mean by this, you're inducing lift-off oversteer by quickly lifting mid-corner? Do you have to get back on the throttle to keep from spinning out, and how do you steer by braking? And how would you "safely" lift if you take a corner too hot?

 

Well, this is all about weight transfer and using it to your advantage. Lift off over steer is a thing for sure and if you can control it you can use it to rotate the car pretty easily. Big thing is being able to control it. The key here is SMOOTH. Smooth inputs. If you lift too aggressively you will spin. I learned that 2 years ago when I first got my alignment dialed in and added the white line rsb set to the stiffest setting.

Coming into a corner either “too hot” or even just being nervous and lifting/dabbing the brakes and that’s it. Spin city. I must’ve spun 3-4 times on the fastest corner at my track before I figured it out. Lift slowly and smoothly and no problem. Keeping brake pressure applied all the way to the apex, like trail braking into the corner will keep the weight over the front wheels and off the rears. This translates to great turn in, and neutralizes under steer.

if you find yourself entering a corner too hot the best option I’ve learned is to keep the brakes applied and turn it in nice and slow. You’ll continue to bleed off the speed by trail braking like this.

I trail brake often, and in the slower corners I used to use lift off over steer/a dab of the brakes to help turn the car. The way the car is setup now, I don’t really need to dab the brakes or lift off completely which is ideal seeing as fast lap times comes from throttle commitment, the saying never lift came from somewhere...right? Even reducing throttle from 80% to say 50% when entering a corner the car would start to lose the rear a bit and to save from spinning, just jump back on the throttle. It’s a combination of car setup, and driver mod. This would be considered a “loose” setup.

By NO means is my car aggressively setup compared to real fwd race cars, but compared to majority of fwd street cars I definitely would NOT put a novice driver in my car. The over steer can come quickly and be difficult to catch if inexperienced. Look up snap over steer. It’s pretty scary lol. If you watch my video there you’ll hear me reference when the rear end starts to come around and you can understand what I’m doing. I have some footage of what happens when you mess up too I can post.

 

T

Thanks for the detailed response, it's very helpful. I've just installed camber/toe arms and coilovers on the rear, took it to a parking lot and for the first ever the rear broke loose and I spun, it was very surprising as I've never experienced anything but plowing. I'll have to get some seat time driving it, and hopefully some autocrossing before taking it to track.

 

Absolutely no problem! Glad I could provide some useful info. Sounds like you’re getting your car ready to handle well. Camber plates upfront and a good alignment and you’ll be happy. For fine tuning you can even play with tire pressures. I’ve been doing so over my past 2 track days and it makes a really big difference

 

welp, currently my car is in rough shape. all 8 of my wheels have some real worn RE71s on them, and i have enough brake pad left for 1 track day, maybe 2 at max. i have enough tire for 1 track day also, and MAYBE i can squeeze one more. i dont plan on buying new pads as i have a brake upgrade of sorts coming shortly, and i dont plan on buying new tires this year as the season is just about finshed.

also i have a NICE exhaust leak between manifold and head, looks like the gasket has just had enough and is starting to push. its not huge yet but its there, and its affecting my spool by over 500rpm so far. all my previous logs show 20psi ~3200rpm. im now making 20psi at ~3700rpm. it feels TERRIBLE on the street. the lag....its bad lol.

one track day pre paid for next weekend, the 29th. after that ill reassess and see if i can squeeze another track day in or not. heres hoping. during the off season i have PLANS. many many many plans to address cooling, braking, and other.

 

Real worn tires that arent showing cords are just slicks. Full send.

 

LOL. You’re right. Couldn’t agree more.

 

update.

so this exhaust leak of mine has been killing me. i decided to hell with it, i'll swap the gasket friday night, in time for the track saturday morning. this was a mistake thats for sure.

took 6 hours to get the job done. old gasket out, new gasket it, car buttoned up.

can see where it was leaking, what a MASSIVE nightmare this job was. damn. finished at 1am, drive home from my buddies shop, got to bed around 230. up at 6AM to leave for my track day. i was not doing well lol. took some caffeine to fire me up that is for sure. too old for this no sleep shit. OH, and the leak is still leaking so thats fucking great. must be from the manifold to the turbo or something.

took this log last night, look at this boost lag, its absolutely horrible. i dont know how the BT guys live this life but it sucks so much. im used to seeing 20psi by 3200rpm. i now see 20psi at 4000rpm. car is SUPER lazy and really does suck to drive. even on track i often fall below 4000rpm, which is usually no problem but with this kind of response it sucks. go WOT, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, BOOST. no torque at all down low. car is down on power and i can feel it. suckssss


on to my saturday track day, 3.5 hours of sleep, exhaust leak, and these conditions...



it was wet and raining on and off all day. im on worn RE71r tires...still sent it anyways.
the track day was well organized and well ran. 0 issues with anyone. seemed to be a mostly VW group, with the average hp among them being 400hp. there were plenty of GTIs and golf R's. these thing make all the power with none of the mods, must be nice. lots of big brake kits around too, usually when i see those it makes me think great, im about to get shit on...

well it took me sometime to learn the wet line, which when used in the wet, provides a surprising amount of grip. like its actually usable. this was cool. keep in mind this was my first time EVER driving on track in the rain/wet. i learned a TON and it was an amazing experience.

i was running in advanced group(cant believe i signed up for advanced) and to my surprise, i was getting point bys left right and center. oh man. somethings working, my car? my tires? me? something. its like ALLLL the money i spent on the car, and on seat time has finally started to pay off or something? its always nice to hear from your pit neighbor that he was watching me take alllllllll the golfs to gapple bees first corner, and every corner after the gap grew larger and larger. where they all caught me was on the straights. dammit. need moar power, or maybe just less exhaust leak. these guys were killing me on corner exit, like killing me bad. stupid laggy shit.

temps were good all day, till the afternoon when it dried up, warmed up a little, and i was able to full send and fully slay. not sure ive used so much of the car before. hit a new PB for coolant temp and oil temp(since the new oil cooler). i had my over heat light come on at 121c coolant temp(250f) and my oil hit 260f which im not worried about. the SECOND i start doing a cool down lap, all my temps drop down right away so thats cool. recovery is quick. my brakes are a little cooked, need to check out pad life. one more track day?????????????????????? hopefully.

my pit neighbor's amazing race car Porsche 944 turbo


cool lotus race car, driver was learning, but super cool car


on to the next part of my day/weekend...built motor?

there is a local(and by local i mean in Ontario) guy parting out a full build. he had alllllllllll the nice parts but i was after his forged motor. he lived near the track(which is 2 hours 15 minutes away from me) so i decided now would be the perfect time to check it out. well i left a deposit on it so theres that. going this weekend to pull the valve cover, pull the pan, and if everything looks good, ill be taking it home. woohoo!!

ive also got a few goodies on the way, koyo rad, GV grill for allllllll the airflow(already thinking of the nasty duct i can build with that thing) and one surprise part that ill reveal when it shows up. some exciting shit for sure.

video of some live action, i spin out pretty hard in the beginning here. also spun out later in the day, spun so hard the car wouldnt start. thought something broke.

 

Did you happen. To check that the flange o. Your exhaust manifold is flat while you had it out? If you ha e an exhaust leak it's going to hurt your spool.

Glad you were beating on some vee dubs

 

so i never removed the manifold, just separated it from the head, slid the old gasket out, new one it and thats it. i did consider the possibility the manifold could be warped but is that common on these? seems like the oem manifold is pretty robust and can handle some shit but im not sure? this leak is hurting my spool big time. exhaust leak is audible under cold start and light acceleration