NWARC Lapping Day

Contents

Summary

• Highlights
  • Pacific Raceways (Formerly Seattle International Raceway) is by far the most fun and challenging track I've driven so far.
  • NWARC (Northwest Alfa Romeo Club) ran the event really smoothly and very well. There were a lot of really great people at the track that day, which made for an awesome experience. Kudos to NWARC for a well-run event!
  • I learned a lot about my car and improved my driving ability.
  • Nothing broke, the car is still in the same number of pieces as it started out, I didn't go gopher hunting at all, I didn't swap ends, and I kept the shiny side up.
  • My brakes held up to everything I threw at them. That's encouraging since PR is much harder on the brakes than PIR.
  • My coolant temperature never broke 98C - no overheating!
  • My water injection system never ran dry or lost its prime.
• Lowlights
  • The day didn't go on forever.

Track Map

©2004 Pacific Raceways, Inc.

Track Description The Pacific Raceways Road Course is an SCCA and NASCAR certified, 10-turn (9 turns with a "kink" in the main straightaway), 2.25-mile course. There is a total elevation change of 125 feet, of which 100 feet occurs in 1/2 mile. The course winds through natural wooded terrain, making it one of the most unique and challenging courses in the United States. ©2004 Pacific Raceways, Inc.

Track Report

Detailed Turn-By-Turn Notes: Before you see the speed numbers below and yell at me for looking at my gauges while driving, let me point out that the only time I really looked at my gauges, especially the speedometer, was between turns 9 and 1. Most of the time, I was concentrating on driving and only looked at my gauges once per lap or so to make sure no red lights were flashing. All speed information quoted below is from analyzing datalogs after the fact.

1. Turn 1 is barely enough to call a turn at normal street driving speeds, but at 110+mph, even a little bend is a turn. Couple that with the fact that the car feels a little light while negotiating Turn 1, and it really is something you have to pay attention to. Resist the urge to lift the throttle as you pass the end of the wall on your right, and all will be well.
2. Turn 2 is a little different than anything I'd encountered before. The correct line is to enter at a decent speed and hug the rim of the carousel for the first half of the turn. That's a little scary if you don't yet trust your car, since there's not much room if you screw up. Then, about halfway through the turn, you gradually turn in sharper, so you kiss the apex cone and drift back out to the exit cone. By the end of the day, I was carrying almost 60mph through this turn, getting back on the throttle about 30-40% a little before the apex, and then hitting around 80mph by the exit cone.
3. After the short "straight" between Turn 2 and Turn 3A, you head downhill and have to brake pretty sharply before entering 3A. Turn 3A was one of the harder ones for me to get, and I still wasn't all that consistent by the end of the day. I would brake down to about 40mph for the first part of 3A and then down to 20-25mph before I turned in toward the apex cone. I'd get a bit of tire squealing here, but the car seemed to be pretty neutral in that neither the front nor the rear seemed to want to get away from me more than the other. I'd get on the throttle a little bit between 3A and 3B and then do a quick stab of the brakes (and possibly downshift to 2nd) before turning in for 3B. Well before the apex cone for 3B, I'd be hard on the throttle, and just let the car drift out toward the exit cone.
4. If you took the right line between 3B and Turn 4, Turn 4 was barely a turn at all. As I'd come up the hill toward 4, I'd just aim for the 2nd cone (the tall one) and turn slightly right as I went around it. I found that the rear of the car would start to get a little loose if I trail-braked into Turn 4. Thus I usually did all my braking before the first cone.
5. For Turn 5A, I'd just turn in at the turn-in cone and get on the throttle immediately to plant the car. This turn almost always felt pretty good in my car, as I was on the throttle and the car would just stick. Upon exiting 5A, you have to hang to the left to be set up for entering 5B. This area never felt really good, even on those laps where my instructor said I did it well. As I understand it, you just hang left until the turn-in cone, and then turn in rather sharply toward the apex cone. I found I had to tap the brakes between 5A and 5B to get the car to actually turn in, and through that and the car sliding a bit, it never quite felt right. I'll work on that next time...
6. Initially, I turned in for Turn 6 at the turn-in cone and headed toward the apex cone. That worked ok, but I never needed to go all the way out to the track-out cone if I did this, even if I floored it well before the apex cone. After following some other people, I found that I could turn in earlier, get on the throttle almost immediately, not turn as much, and still make the corner. Going up the hill after the apex gives you more traction, so from a theoretical standpoint, an early apex makes sense.
7. Turn 7 was a little scary as I increased my speeds. You come up the hill from 6, and there's the turn-in cone staring at you. You almost have to turn in before you can see the rest of the track because of the hill. I'd pretty much maintain my speed around 7, since I was already around 5500RPM in 3rd and didn't want to shift to 4th. Midway through 7, it really feels like if you were to lift off of the throttle, you'd go around and around.
8. I approached Turn 8 a lot like Turn 2; brake before the entry, hug the outside for a little while, turn in about halfway through, and hit the power a little before the apex cone. From watching others in front of me in this corner, I was braking a lot later and for a shorter duration before entering Turn 8. After passing the apex of 8, I'd stay to the far left to get set up for the entry of Turn 9.
9. When not just entering the track, I'd enter turn 9 under mild acceleration at about 70-75mph. Right about at the apex of 9, I'd go from 30% or 40% throttle to 100% throttle in 3rd gear. After passing the apex, I kept the throttle planted so as not to lose the rear end of the car (and because the front straight was coming). About 300ft (2.35s) down the track, I'd shift into 4th gear and continue to plant the throttle.
10. Turn 10 isn't really a "turn" per se, but they call it that. I just kept my foot planted (if I wasn't consciously limiting my speed) with a little jog to the left and then back to the right as the wall approached. The distance from 10 to 1 is longer than from 9 to 10, but it felt shorter because of the higher speeds.

My Car Setup

• Brakes
  • Porterfield R4 Front Pads (AP531)
  • Porterfield R4-S Rear Pads (AP631)
  • OEM Rotors, Front and Rear (77,000 mi)
  • OEM Calipers
  • 3SX Performance SS Brake Lines
  • ATE Type 200 Brake Fluid
  • OEM Front Dust Shields Removed
  • Supercar Engineering Titanium Pad Backing Plates
• Tires
  • 245/45/17 Firestone Firehawk SZ50-EP (4mm tread)
  • Cold Inflation Pressures: 39F/34R
• Suspension
  • Saner 28mm Front Anti-Sway Bar, Poly Bushings
  • TEC Performance Front Strut Tower Brace
  • Saner 25mm Rear Anti-Sway Bar, Poly Bushings
  • Cusco Rear Strut Tower Brace
  • OEM ECS Springs/Shocks (77,000mi)
  • ECS Shocks set to full stiff (Sport Mode)
• Engine
  • K&N Aircharger Filter
  • ek2 Development Downpipe
  • High-flow Pre-Cats
  • OEM Main Catalytic Converter
  • OEM Cat-Back Exhaust
  • Blitz DS Boost Controller (R:54 G:9, 0.82kg/cm² sustained)
  • Near-stock (12psi) boost levels.
  • ERL Aquamist 2s Water Injection System (170cc/m peak)
  • Mobil1 0W40 Synthetic Oil
  • 30/70 Coolant Water Mixture with Redline Water Wetter
  • MSD 8224 Ignition Coils, Magnacor Wires
  • OEM NGK Spark Plugs at 0.039"
  • RDR Fuel Pump Rewiring
  • OEM Oil Cooler
  • 3SX Performance Polyurethane Motor Mounts
• Driveline
  • Redline MT-90/MTL Mix in Transaxle
  • Redline MT-90/MTL Mix in Transfer Case
  • Redline 75W90 in Rear Differential
• Instrumentation
  • Full Defi BF Series II Sensors/Gauges
  • Mirage Mitsubishi Hybrid Datalogger for Palm
• Camera
  • Sony TVR-25 Mini-DV Camcorder
  • 0.5x Wide-Angle Lens
  • 6" Suction Cup Mount from FilmTools.com
  • Camera mount mounted to inside of sunroof glass

Equipment Report

• Brakes
  • Kick@$$! For the second time in a row, I had no brake issues at all. I had to brake once from 110+mph to about 60mph, once from about 90mph to 25mph, once from 90mph to 60mph, and once from 70mph to 50mph on every 2.25mph lap. No fade, no sponginess, nothing but "throw out the anchor" when I asked.
  • I made an effort to get on and off of the brakes quickly to help keep temperatures down, but I wasn't always doing this when I was concentrating on other things. I generally trail-braked into 3a, but I think that may be the right thing to do.
  • After bleeding the fluid from my brakes, things looked pretty good. The fluid was a little cloudy, but it wasn't too dark and had no bubbles that I could see. The fluid didn't get cooked, even though the brakes did indeed get pretty hot. My piston seals are still pliable and everything on the calipers looks ok. Thus the Supercar Engineering titanium backing plates get the thumbs up from me. They seem to be doing their job.
• Tires
  • I was very happy with the tires' performance, as I had no strange wear, and the total wear was minimal. Currently, these tires have 2 track days, 5 autocross schools, and 3 seasons' worth of autocrosses on them and they've still got 3-4mm of tread left.
• Suspension
  • For my current driving ability and the way the rest of the car is set up, I have lots of great things to say about this suspension setup. The car is extremely predictable and forgiving, and it sticks pretty well. Perhaps after a couple more track days, I may reach some of the limits of this setup, but for now, it's fine.
• Engine
  • Nothing broke, nothing leaked, and I got to go fast.
  • I had one "episode" of knock during the entire time (95min) I was out on the track. I had a couple of times where it showed 1-4 on the knock count, but as much as I've looked at the data, those don't seem to be anything worth worrying about. The one time I did see some appreciable knock (12) was about midway through Turn 8, under partial throttle. See below for more details.
• Driveline
  • Didn't break anything, so it was a good day :-)
• Instrumentation
  • I still love my Defi gauges. It's comforting to have the big, red idiot light set to blind me (ok, it's not really that bright) if my oil pressure drops below 15psi. With the rash of spun bearings in the 3/S community this year, I don't want to be the next one.
  • The Mirage hybrid data logger rocks! I logged every session except the first one, and still had plenty of storage space and battery power left over.

Numbers and Data

• General Data (Metric)

  		Typical		Extreme
  		Low	High	Minimum	Maximum
  Water Temperature	C	91	95	89	98
  Oil Temperature Post-Cooler, Pre-Engine	C	121	124	119	129
  Exhaust Gas Temperature Post-Turbine with Water Injection	C	610	700	540	750
  Oil Pressure	kg/cm2	3.7	6.2	2.6	7.3
  Fuel Pressure Differential, Pre-injectors	kg/cm2	3.1	3.4	3.0	3.6
  WOT Manifold Pressure	kg/cm2		0.82		1.02
  Knock	ECU Count	0	2	0	12






• General Data (Standard)

  		Typical		Extreme
  		Low	High	Minimum	Maximum
  Water Temperature	F	196	203	192	208
  Oil Temperature Post-Cooler, Pre-Engine	F	250	255	246	264
  Exhaust Gas Temperature Post-Turbine with Water Injection	F	1130	1292	1004	1382
  Oil Pressure	psi	53	88	37	104
  Fuel Pressure Differential, Pre-injectors	psi	44	48	43	51
  WOT Manifold Pressure	psi		11.6		14.5
  Knock	ECU Count	0	2	0	12

  
  




• Brake Rotor Wear Data

  Discard Depth: 28.4mm (Front)		Front		Rear
  		Left (Driver)	Right (Pass)	Left (Driver)	Right (Pass)
  Rotor Thickness (Before Event)	mm	30.03	30.08	19.97	19.98
  Rotor Thickness (After Event)	mm	29.90	29.85	19.93	19.87
  Wear (Due To Event)	mm	0.13	0.23	0.04	0.11






• Brake Pad Wear Data

  Note that this is after two track days as I did not measure the pad thickness between the event at PIR and this event.

  Original Thickness: 9.5mm		Left (Driver)		Right (Pass)
  		Outboard	Inboard	Inboard	Outboard
  Pad Material Thickness (After Event, Leading Edge, excluding backing plate)	mm	7.08	6.94	6.64	6.86
  Pad Material Thickness (After Event, Trailing Edge, excluding backing plate)	mm	7.10	6.79	6.25	6.92
  Average Pad Thickness	mm	7.09	6.86	6.45	6.89
  Average Pad Wear (2 Events)	mm	2.35 (25%)	2.59 (27%)	3.00 (32%)	2.56 (27%)






• Hot Tire Pressure Data

  Note that this is after the cool down lap, immediately after entering the pits.

  Cold Pressures: 39F/34R		Front		Rear
  		Left (Driver)	Right (Pass)	Left (Driver)	Right (Pass)
  Session 1	psi	45.0	45.5	38.5	39.0
  Session 2	psi	45.2	45.5	38.7	39.2
  Session 3	psi	45.6	45.6	38.6	39.2
  Session 4	psi	45.8	46.1	38.8	39.3
  Session 5	psi	46.7	46.0	38.8	39.2

The Lone Occurrence of Significant Knock

I got one little spike of knock for about 3.5 seconds out of the whole 95+ minutes and over 100 miles I spent on the track. All in all, I figure that's not too bad. Other than the situation described below, knock counts were generally between 0 and 2, with an occasional spike to 4. That's pretty much what I see during normal non-track driving.

Video (1:07) (2657KB) This video shows what I was doing during the time period shown in the datalog. It shows turn-in on 5B through the first part of Turn 2 on the next lap. As you can see, there are numerous places where I was running the car pretty hard, but the only time I got knock was under partial throttle around 3400RPM.	Slow Motion (0:25) (1019KB) This is at 1/3 speed and covers the period of 00:24 to 00:32 in the original video.
Larger Image (19KB)	Full Data (9KB)
The above is a datalog from about 8 minutes into my last (fifth) session of the day. As you can see from the labels on the graph, I got a spike of knock for about 3.5 seconds as I rounded Turn 8. The throttle was between 35% and 40% during the first part where the knock count was increasing. Timing advance dropped from the mid-to-high 30s down to a low of 14, which coincided with the knock count decreasing and the throttle going to 100% The timing stayed low (14-16 degrees) for the duration of WOT immediately following the knock, as opposed to mid-to-high 20s normally. So the $10,000,000 question is why did I get knock under those conditions when the car ran great for the entire rest of the day? I have some theories, but I'll wait to list them, so as not to discourage others from attempting an explanation. Do you have an idea as to why I saw knock? If so, please e-mail me or respond to my post on Team3S. I'll update this page with my explanation and others explanations once I get some replies...

Lap Data Analysis