280z FP Build

[manninen]

Yeah, doesnt help when large swaybar is hooked up those. 

Material needs to be chosen right at least

Edited February 28, 2020 by manninen

[tube80z]

Mine all cracked in the bend.  The bolts into the body were still tight and a cursory visual inspection missed it until I pulled the diff and it was plain as day.  I mostly had problems with the right side.  Another SCCA EP car a friend has had similar handling issues so we looked closely and his plates had been cracked too.  Same spot also on the right side.

[Ben280]

Mini update! We got one weekend of racing in before the world went into shutdown. Car did real well for both days, had a little bottoming out over some bumps in the front, guess that means we are low enough  

 

 

Getting a chance to do some more mods now. Couple cosmetic things happening, and getting the car ready for some time trial events that will HOPEFULLY be happening in late June. 

[walkerbk]

looks good but it sounded like your differential was bouncing all over the place. every time you acc/brake you can hear it bang.

[Jboogsthethug]

That sounds gnarly, Did I miss something? Do you have a supercharger now??

[Ben280]

4 hours ago, walkerbk said:

looks good but it sounded like your differential was bouncing all over the place. every time you acc/brake you can hear it bang.

 

I think this is the gear lash in the transmission, new sound this year haha!  

 

1 hour ago, Jboogsthethug said:

That sounds gnarly, Did I miss something? Do you have a supercharger now??

 

Straight cut gear whine is a wild sound  

[Jboogsthethug]

ah that explains it, forgot about that!! How are you liking it?? Have you seen a dramatic improvement in your lap times?

[Jboogsthethug]

I suppose it's more for strength huh? I was thinking it was a full sequential but watching the video you're still shifting in a pattern.

[Ben280]

3 hours ago, Jboogsthethug said:

ah that explains it, forgot about that!! How are you liking it?? Have you seen a dramatic improvement in your lap times?

 

So far the one event we've been able to run was a blast! Need to get used to it. Clutchless shifting is weird, but much faster. I'll have to see if I can find some RPM traces to illustrate. A bit advantage of this box was I get to select ratios. At the moment, it's geared for higher speeds, so a bit of a long first/second. Makes it tough in the little lot we were in, could have probably screamed around in just first gear. 

 

3 hours ago, Jboogsthethug said:

I suppose it's more for strength huh? I was thinking it was a full sequential but watching the video you're still shifting in a pattern.

 

More strength, ability to swap gear ratios pretty easily, easy to R&R, and a teensy bit lighter. It is still in a H pattern (Jerico WC-4 if you want to go look at their website), but we aren't allowed to run sequentials is this class anyway. The springs for the 2-3 shift are crazy strong, I don't think there's much advantage to sequential at least for the upshifts here. 

[Ben280]

Getting back to racing, and had a couple of events already. First up was SCCA Time Trials National Tour at The Ridge Motorsports Park up in Shelton Washington. First time at that track, and first time on track in about 6 years, so I wasn't about to light the world on fire, but I managed to go sub 2 minutes, which was the goal for the weekend. I did swap out my lightweight autox front hub arrangement (T3 aluminum hubs, custom hats and scalloped rotors) in favor of a full vented rotor and OEM steel hubs. Figured additional thermal mass would be good, and I was right. Still need to work on brake cooling, and cooling in general for future events. My auto-x gearing meant that I was on the limiter in 4th for a good chunk on the front straight. When I go back, I'll likely swap out some of the trans gears to try and optimize those ratios. Anyway, video here: 

 

 

This past weekend was back to Auto-x, so I swapped out the front hubs, swapped back the brake compounds, replaced a corded front tire, and went racin! I was using the usual Hawk DTC-30 on the track, but have been messing around with the Hawk HP+ pads for auto-x, hoping for a bit less need for warm-up. Well the HP+ suck, and I'm throwing them in the garbage tomorrow! Just really numb, bad release, and no real initial bite. It was also fairly cold, and my tires were having issues getting up to temp, I've been really thinking about switching up a couple things in the car after August, so wheels and tires might make the list. Anyway, best time from Sunday, when we finally got the tire to be over ambient temp! Reasonable time, but should have been 3 seconds or so faster on this course. Always more work to do!

 

 

[JMortensen]

So you had brake temp issues? Boiled fluid or just cooked pads? Want to go out there this year, have more power and weight than you with 12.2 vented rotors and working on good 3" vents in the front.

[Ben280]

4 hours ago, JMortensen said:

So you had brake temp issues? Boiled fluid or just cooked pads? Want to go out there this year, have more power and weight than you with 12.2 vented rotors and working on good 3" vents in the front.

 

Just cooked the pads and got some serious heat into the system. No brake cooling to speak of, which with wheels this small and wide is a real problem. The pedal felt alright, but the brake feel just didn't instill the confidence I wanted. I need to do some research and probably some testing to find something that I like. 

 

Water and Oil temps were a bigger problem, I could get about 3 hot laps before temps were too high. 

[tube80z]

I use a higher temp race pad on mine.  You need to do some preheating to grid or warm things up some other way.  It can make the first run rather dicey if you can't get heat into the brakes and pads.  But having consistent braking with the rotors glowing red is really nice.  Now only if the car was back together sometime this decade.

[JMortensen]

I went with Hawk Blacks based on Coffey's recommendation. He was saying they work on the big tracks and at autocrosses, although I think he ran at Willow Springs a lot which is not hard on brakes. So far I can confirm that they work at autox without heating up. Hoping they'll be OK on the track with some big ducts. Back in the late 90s I was running Porterfield R4 and friends were running Hawk Blues. Both had to get warm before they worked. Not safe on street.

[Ben280]

I figure if I can get the car to feel really nice for 2-3 hot laps in a row, that's about all I need for a time trial type event. There's a fine line for me between going fast and burning the car down during a 20 minute session. 

 

I've tried Hawk Blacks, and they were pretty good, but I like the bite and modularity of the DTC-30s more. I might try the DTC-60's but I've also heard that Hawk has been left in the dust technology wise by other companies at this point, and the torque their pad compounds can put out just are nowhere near what other tech can do. Need to research this more, but I've heard enough to be interested.

 

I'll note too that the Hawk Black brake dust is about the most corrosive thing I've ever seen. Don't even think about getting it wet or it will permanently bond and etch into aluminum. 

 

 

[tube80z]

The really nice thing about switching to aftermarket calipers is you can get almost any pad in any compound.  I've had good luck with Performance Friction.  They no longer sell the same material I used but it was a medium torque, good initial bite, great release, and long wearing while easy on the rotors.  This was the 01 compound.  They now have a new compound that is supposed to be even better, the 11 is what I'd try.  Keep in mind when they say medium torque they are looking at braking in the 1.5g to low 2g range.  Stay away from the high bite stuff unless you're packing a lot of downforce.  Or it will be skid city.  

[Ben280]

36 minutes ago, tube80z said:

The really nice thing about switching to aftermarket calipers is you can get almost any pad in any compound.  I've had good luck with Performance Friction.  They no longer sell the same material I used but it was a medium torque, good initial bite, great release, and long wearing while easy on the rotors.  This was the 01 compound.  They now have a new compound that is supposed to be even better, the 11 is what I'd try.  Keep in mind when they say medium torque they are looking at braking in the 1.5g to low 2g range.  Stay away from the high bite stuff unless you're packing a lot of downforce.  Or it will be skid city.  

 

Sounds about perfect for what I'm after. The DTC's are ok, but wear like junk and are about as abrasive as 60 grit sandpaper. I've got Wilwood calipers front and rear, so a fairly common pad shape. Might look to upgrade as I start adding aero since I'm using rather small calipers. Only reason to upgrade there would be a thicker rotor, but I'm using a 12x.81" rotor up front. Rears are rather thin and after their visit to the track turned mostly blue haha!

[Leon]

On 6/29/2020 at 7:01 PM, JMortensen said:

I went with Hawk Blacks based on Coffey's recommendation. He was saying they work on the big tracks and at autocrosses, although I think he ran at Willow Springs a lot which is not hard on brakes. So far I can confirm that they work at autox without heating up. Hoping they'll be OK on the track with some big ducts. Back in the late 90s I was running Porterfield R4 and friends were running Hawk Blues. Both had to get warm before they worked. Not safe on street.

 

FWIW, I have Hawk Blues on a street-driven E36, I'd call the cold friction perfectly acceptable and nowhere near unsafe. Dust and squeal is another story.

 

I've run DTC-30's on my S2000 for 4 years and have liked them. Not much warm-up required at all (they're fine when driven cold on the street) and have good modulation. I would probably get ~10 days out of them if I had to guess. I was in a pinch last year with worn out front pads before a track day and tossed some PFC 08's in there. The PFC's have felt terrific so far, great fade resistance and modulation, but the squeal is pretty gnarly. It's still street driven so noise is not an inconsequential side-effect.

[Ben280]

 

30 minutes ago, Leon said:

 

FWIW, I have Hawk Blues on a street-driven E36, I'd call the cold friction perfectly acceptable and nowhere near unsafe. Dust and squeal is another story.

 

I've run DTC-30's on my S2000 for 4 years and have liked them. Not much warm-up required at all (they're fine when driven cold on the street) and have good modulation. I would probably get ~10 days out of them if I had to guess. I was in a pinch last year with worn out front pads before a track day and tossed some PFC 08's in there. The PFC's have felt terrific so far, great fade resistance and modulation, but the squeal is pretty gnarly. It's still street driven so noise is not an inconsequential side-effect.

 

My DTC-30's for AX duty needed a little bit of dragging to feel inspiring in the first corner. But a lightweight car doesn't make warmup easy. Was looking at the PFC stuff the other day, good data point! Squeal isn't a worry for me, but it's good info for comparing manufacturer language against.

[JMortensen]

Ride the brake and gas up to the line. 

 

Re the blues, my friends were running 510s, but I recall they didn't do much until hot like the R4. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe they upgraded the compound since the 20th century.