Tires And Other Priceless Ouestions

[betelgeuse]

The brakes fall apart from track heat.
I run Hawk Plus. Can not use race pads because there are just
too hot

I'm not following - what is falling apart because of the heat?

I did'nt understand that part either. Hell I run stock caliper/rotors on my 328is with PFC 01 pads and I don't have any problems. My front calipers are probably smaller than his rears. And it's not like I baby my brakes.

Greg

[breakaway500]

Maybe too much use of the brakes with that left foot,instead of lifting off the throttle. I have seen left foot brake novices fall into this category,with overheated brakes a direct result. Good brakes don't fall apart for no reason. I am guessing,of course,but from reading about when and where he is using brakes on track,it could very well come down to the operator being on them too much. No brake will take that kind of abuse...for long.

[CP]

My $.02 for this thread: obviously a large factor in keeping your car pointed forwards on a wet track has alot to do with the tires. My typical setup is 4 psi higher tire pressures (full tread RA1s) than in the dry (shaved RA1s) and an end link removed from each end of the car, taking swaybars out of the equation and allowing the car to roll more than a dry setup (think weight transfer). However the other HUGE factor is how you drive the car.

What do you do differently in the rain versus the dry? One of the keys is finding the spots on the track where the grip is. It's not always where you would expect it to be. The grippy parts can change lap to lap. Typical brake zones have two finely polished grooves on the dry line, so move your line over a half or full car width so your tires aren't on those slick parts. The "egg under the accelerator" idea is a good one. Be ever so smooth with throttle application and "squeeze" the power on. Be patient. If your car understeers under power (T11/12 at NHMS), wait a little longer to apply power or try a different line. Some corners can be taken in a higher gear than usual, resulting in a better application of power at the exit versus a lower (higher torque) gear. This concept works in the snow too. Lift-throttle oversteer can be carefully used (mostly in slower corners) to get the car to rotate quickly mid-corner if you want to apply a point-and-shoot strategy.

I like to drive in the rain, mostly for the fact that I get to hunt around for grip on parts of the track that I typically don't drive on. Finding the limit is much easier than on a dry track and is being done at lower speeds. Have fun in the rain and look at it as an opportunity to try different things. Think about what you can do to maximize traction both at the front and rear ends of the car. How does weight transfer help to gain or lose traction?

Here are a few videos from 2009 to illustrate my points. The car is a 99 Spec Miata with a Gen1 GoPro camera, so the quality isn't all that great. If you are about to go off, don't panic, try not to get stuck when you do go off and re-enter the track carefully per a corner worker's gestures if you can see one. Standing water is interesting no matter what kind of tires you've got...

Thunderbolt
NHMS rearview

[Track wheels]

Yes you are right about left foot braking putting excessive heat in to the brakes.
And you burn more gas. So one has to watch that.
But no, the damage was not caused by left foot braking because the final day of tracking was the only day I applied this technique.
It seems to be a defect in either the choice of metal or the annealing process.
I decided to have the shop pull the calipers because on 1addicts.com, some serious track guys have found that
the pistons were breaking apart and cracking. I can not confirm the following, but there have been blogs that are reporting
complete brake failures( on track ).
The damage was much worse with hi temp race pads.
My brakes were sent out for a rebuild and they found, upon further inspection,that they would need to machine new pistons,
BMW parts were back ordered.
For some unknown reason, weeks went by and those parts took weeks to make and after over a month I had enough.
2011 calipers were removed from a new inventory car by the dealer - Thankyou.

http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showthre ... 203&page=4

[Track wheels]

CP - great info on rain track work. Loved the video!!!
In the rain, it`s all about gentleness as one gets comfortable with very limited traction.
My car has been very safe and nearly neutral as long as I can find the unused areas and avoid
the shiny stuff.
Big difference in the car`s handling when it`s raining - so careful to not wake the baby up.
I do want to have some deep tread tires next time. - futher discussion...

Here`s something I would like to ask.
One very good driver criticized my driving around the turns looking for traction.
He said to just go straight, turn, then go- point and shoot.
The head instructor confirmed that all braking and acceleration should be in a straight line
and he recommended point and shoot (-not his exact words)
I`m wondering if this an over generalization of what can be done in the rain
or do you go to point and shoot if the turn allows it? ( as opposed to a long sweeping turn)
I see you mentioned this above.
I might add that this was Mid-Ohio were they have covered road damage up
with 3 different type of sealers. Here`s were quite a number of cars stayed off the
track when it was raining.

Robert

[Track wheels]

"They confirmed it on Y-tube because you can hear the motor
being held back just for a moment with trail breaking in some classes."

I really doubt any of them are on the brakes into 4.If you hear the motor being "held back",that is called monitor or maintenance throttle..you are not adding or subtracting torque to the drive wheels. You are at a steady throttle position.

5 years without contact is good.Keep it up!

Admittingly trailing braking there seems a little extreme but one of those guys made the video.
It was his in car video
He is the real " I drive Flat OUT" guy.

Robert

[blindsidefive0]

The brakes fall apart from track heat.
I run Hawk Plus. Can not use race pads because there are just
too hot

I'm not following - what is falling apart because of the heat?

I did'nt understand that part either. Hell I run stock caliper/rotors on my 328is with PFC 01 pads and I don't have any problems. My front calipers are probably smaller than his rears. And it's not like I baby my brakes.

Greg

AHHH, so there IS something still stock on that car. I figured it's just "become" an M3, but I suppose you can still call it a 328is with those stock rotors...

[betelgeuse]

[/quote]

AHHH, so there IS something still stock on that car. I figured it's just "become" an M3, but I suppose you can still call it a 328is with those stock rotors...[/quote]

hahaha. Maybe I should call it a 328is+. I would like to buy better brakes for it but I don't think it would lower my lap times.

The funniest thing about my car is the tach only reads to 7k rpm. I can bury the tach.

Greg

[Track wheels]

The brakes fall apart from track heat.
I run Hawk Plus. Can not use race pads because there are just
too hot

I'm not following - what is falling apart because of the heat?

I did'nt understand that part either. Hell I run stock caliper/rotors on my 328is with PFC 01 pads and I don't have any problems. My front calipers are probably smaller than his rears. And it's not like I baby my brakes.

Greg

I wanted to add this- didn`t know if you saw it

http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showthre ... 203&page=4

[blindsidefive0]

Is there a particular post that I should be looking at? Looks like there's an issue, but doesn't look like a clear consensus amongst the comments.

One reasonable post mentions brake fluid. The fluid matters, maybe you could try getting some ATE Super Blue or something like that (if you haven't already). Dave and I beat on the brakes of the 325i with fresh tires for hours on end (back to back 30+ minute run groups) during day 2 (dry day) at NJMP. We didn't have any issues using that fluid.

Another option is to ditch the 135 (you said you were thinking about selling soon) and get an e36. No excuses after that, it's an awesome out-of-the box track car that's easy and fun to drive. Slight understeer tendencies, but most of that is driver induced. Also the stock brakes are just fine - just ask Greg with his e36 328/M3 engine freak machine. My 325i has 187k miles on it, there were a couple guys who co-drove a 318 with 250k+ miles, and the M3's are an absolute blast.

[dtlemoine]

One reasonable post mentions brake fluid. The fluid matters, maybe you could try getting some ATE Super Blue or something like that (if you haven't already). Dave and I beat on the brakes of the 325i with fresh tires for hours on end (back to back 30+ minute run groups) during day 2 (dry day) at NJMP. We didn't have any issues using that fluid.

+1

I ran CLEAN (brand new) DOT 3/4 fluid at the Glen in my SSA E36 M3 and my pedal was hitting the floor by the middle of the 3rd RG on day 1. Bled some Motul into the system and day 2 was a non-issue. Since then I've fully flushed with ATE Super Blue and/or ATE TYP 200 (exact same stuff, but different colors - makes flushing VERY easy to know when you're done) and the pedal has been firm no matter how hard I beat on it.

As Nick said, we ran the E36 325i with ATE Blue and Hawk HP+ at NJMP back to back with gobs of track time on day 2 this year (3+ hours between the 2 of us), on fresh V710s, and the car stopped on a dime, first and last RGs of the day.

[TroyV]

You can have my E36 328is in a direct trade for a 135.

[Track wheels]

You can have my E36 328is in a direct trade for a 135.

Now hold on a minute... direct trade plus cash$$$$

Robert

[betelgeuse]

.....e36 328/M3 engine freak machine.'. .

hahahahaha............I never knew what to call it. Now I know

[6PAK72]

first of all, I'm glad I wasn't flagging at 2:13 in that video. I got close enough sideways to the flagger in the Bowl this year to be very concerned about him.

Next, on the Miata, we run RA1's. The first set were cast-offs from Leos, and we've gotten 17 days out of them between the two of us, including the open track day. Admittedly, our times were going down all season so I don't expect next year's wear to be as good.

Being relatively new, I really appreciate Carl's comments and find them completely accurate. The RA's raise the turning grip to my mind about 75% over street compound "performance" tires, and absolutely, the brake bias moved forward - so much that we changed rear pad compound and eventually, spring rates.

I had to drive the Miata at NJMP on street compounds in the rain, and that was an exercise in frustration all day - I was fine through the river between 4 and 5, but there was no grip on turn-in, and it was nearly impossible to predict when the tires would start to slip in turns.

The second day was moist in the morning so I ran the first run on the street tires. On a nearly dry track, the car had so much less turn-in - the tires were rolling over - and far less grip, and I just could not get a drift going in the Octopus. Times were 1:35ish. When I came in and pulled them off, I was actually chunking tire tread off rather than wearing it down.

Swapped to RA1, times dropped to 2:50 for the second run. The car felt like it was glued to the track - everything I have come to "feel" about driving the car had returned - predictable drift, throttle steer of the drift, precise and grippy turn-ins. I had to reset the front/rear suspension bias half way through the run, but that's about it. Timed lap was somewhere around 2:40, so nearly 1 minute faster.

Tires are expensive, for sure. But being an analysis guy, I measured $800 cost of Hoosier wets against the cost of Liz and me taking 4 vacation days, travel, hotel, COM fees, and threw in general frustration level, and I figured that if we have 1 NJ-style rain this coming year, it's break-even. We bought the wets.