It was just a matter of time before I will find myself at a wet track day and it is as scary as I imagined! And it was nice to see the leader board all jumbled up with cars within a smaller than usual margin from each other.
The experience has taught me a thing or 2 about driving in the wet. The limits were very low.
A little too much steering angle on corner entry, understeer.
A little too much throttle on corner exit, oversteer.
A little too much braking pressure, ABS! And that probably saved me going into the gravel trap more than once.
Rain aside, the other thing I was looking forward to most about this Winton was testing the newly installed oil cooler. The goal was to record the oil temps whilst on track to see how hot things would get during a session. The rain and cooler than usual ambient temps made this an easy trial for the oil cooler.
And as always a Huge thanks to Nugget Nationals for the running the event and for the photos.
Track driving in wet conditions is a good way to practice focusing!
Session video with data overlay. The GPS and speed data was collected via RaceChrono (QStar GPS), and the temp data was collected separately via Torque (OBDLink MX), so I had to splice the data together to get this. Forgot to look into extracting my Fitbit HR for heart rate data.... Next time! 😆
Oil
Penrite Racing 5 (5w30)
Session time
~10 minutes
Ambient Temp
22-23℃
This was a typical EXE/NN session which means it was run flawlessly and I got a healthy 10+ minutes on track. Shame it was raining which brought the ambient temps down making conditions easy for the oil cooler.
Oil Temp
Average
95 ℃
Maximum
103 ℃
Minimum
79 ℃
Engine RPM
Average
4754
Maximum
7337
Despite the rain, I was driving as hard as I dared for the duration of the session keeping the RPM up and in the power (or lack of ha ha...) zone, and it didn't even come close to the high 120℃ I was seeing previously! Overall very happy with the findings.
Coolant Temp
Average
89 ℃
Maximum
91 ℃
Minimum
86 ℃
Intake Temp
Average
24 ℃
Maximum
31 ℃
Minimum
22 ℃
Other bits of data I logged out of curiosity. Coolants temps are well within check and intake temps were nice and low from the weather.
Wet lap PB video with RaceChrono native temp and throttle overlay!
Track wasn't too bad after the rain cleared up, but I was too weak to try for a proper PB by then.
Aways looking surprisingly flat for stock suspension to me. WTB low & racing wheels.
Pre-Some slightly-used camber bolts that got installed pre-track. Time for some negative camber! Fitted and aligned by Ray @ Raceline. A+ service, super friendly, car drives straight, will go back again 😆
FRONT
REAR
LEFT
RIGHT
LEFT
RIGHT
Camber (degs)
-1°04'
-0°51'
-1°06'
-1°32'
Individual Toe (mm)
-0.5
-0.5
0.5
0.6
Total Toe-In (mm)
-1.1
1.1
Setback (degs)
0°01'
0°07'
The camber bolts gave me -1° camber in the fronts. Without them I had just under half-a-degree, so even though it didn't provide much camber, it's double what I had. Unfortunately all my focus on driving the car in the rain at a much lower pace meant I really couldn't tell how much of a difference these made on track. Next time!
When buying a used car you never really quite know how much power there is at the engine. If you're lucky you might get a monster engine making more than expected, but if you're unlucky, you might have an old tired engine.
So one way to find out is to put it on the dyno and luckily enough, I managed to score a spot with the Nugget Nationals dyno day at Weltmeister Eastside literally down the road from me.
How much power did I think I would have? The stock engine is 147kw on paper... Drivetrain losses... Coming up to 4 years old... Feels healthy with "only" ~15,000km on the odo... Heavier-than-stock tyres... So maybe 100kw at the wheel?
The results:
Run 1: 105.3
Run 2: 107.1 Run 3: 107.9 kw
Woohoo! Got more than my estimated 100kw so no complaints!
Fellow crew and BRZ mate (Hi Jorge!) was also there with his basically-new MY17 BRZ with its more powerful 152kw engine on the same dyno, same day, under the same conditions. It is no better baseline to compare my engine to and he got a mighty 110kw.
Given everything, with just under 3kw difference between us, I'm happy my engine is fit and healthy! Now lets go racing! 😁
Hanging out with some cool S2Ks
Game time!
The results! I can see the infamous torque dip now despite not really feeling it all that much whilst driving.
See anything different? This is not me. This is the MY17 BRZ!
Super clean Evo 6 TME in the best colour
Justice... Salvation... Love Others... Human Dignity... Compassion...
TME and a heap of nuggets
I never heard of Weltmeister Eastside prior this event because I've never had a Porsche
Love these tofu cars! They're the reason I almost got a 86 GTS instead of a BRZ
Stood underneath this 86 whilst we watched the runs and kept looking up to admire the suspension and brakes 🤤
At the starting line waiting for the lights to go green. Lights go green, I drop the clutch and the car surges BACKWARDS... Oops! R is not Race mode, welcome back to driving me. Despite the stupid start, it was good to be back driving under these conditions again.
Weather was looking ominous for the most of the day but the rain held off until well into the afternoon.
Being a little unprepared with my camera gear, I used the helmet strap and tape to improvise!
The weather wasn't all bad.
Me trying to work out what all the lights mean! Had to WhatsApp the EXE BRZ team (Jorge & Des) to help out haha.
After I found the right gear, I was on my way.
Still no idea how the 'lines' work. But I did get some very handy pointers from Adam throughout the day.
The maze of possible routes. A co-driver or something to tell me where to go would of been useful.
After seeing all the PB videos with the overlays, I had to try it out for myself. Synchronising the video and the timing was a little tricky, but very happy with the result. I had more footage but there was too much glare. Time to get a proper GoPro mount.
Official clockwise PB was a 68.62 (vs 67.38 RaceChrono). Plenty of room for improvement and looking forward to going back already.
Clockwise Hi/Lo speed traps. It was all about balancing the car on its wheels and hustling.
Official Figure 8 PB was 77.51 (vs 75.93 RaceChrono). Fairly big discrepancy there maybe due to the clouds rolling in during the afternoon. Also not too many laps completed because I decided to bail before the rained.
Figure 8 Hi/Lo speed traps. I was finding chunks of time each lap so fingers crossed I'll come back faster next time.
Drivers briefing
Everyone listening carefully and noting that you cannot take corner 3 flat 😂
Twins mates. I was feeling a bit anti-social so I didn't say Hi but will put it down as something to do for next time!
#becauseracecar
Love the look of this thing and it has the pace around here to back it.
Clean Evo. Wasn't on track this time, but I think it would have nailed it.
Pretty looking 1M. Love the colour!
M&Ms!... Hang on a second, this looks so oddly familiar.
But what about dem gainz bro?
*DROOOL* So much want!
How you are supposed to mount the GoPro!
Very serious looking twin
Is that you Soupy?!
Only the essentials
BIIIGGG wing
I was thinking 'I need a harness too!'
If I didn't get the BRZ, I may have gotten one of these!
