PIARC Sprints

It's been a while since the last track day but I finally made it back to Phillip Island for my first track day of the year. My company for the day were JimJim and Kam, thanks for the support guys.

The differences in the car's setup this time is as follows:
LSD: Factory viscous (previous) >>> Nismo 1.5 way (new)
Front tyres: Yokohama A050 medium 255/40R17 (previous) >>> Hankook Z221 soft 265/35R18 (new)
Front brake pads: Project Mu Type HC+ (previous) >>> Ferodo DS2500 (new)

The morning sessions were wet, quite wet. The weather forecast for the day was rain, easing in the evening. The rain wasn't particularly heavy, but it didn't look good for the rest of the day as it constantly fell in the morning. This led to very scary sessions, flying around the track with the wipers on; with other guys with bigger balls or no sense of life preservation (or both) flying past me on the straights and mid corner. This was confidence shattering and I was tentative getting on the throttle out of corners. I had a couple of separate close-call incidents including getting a little sideways at the kink at Hayshed and locking the brakes and pushing straight off the track going downhill into MG. Very luckily, I caught the car both times.

The morning sessions resulted in the following times and me tucked up in the fetal position in my camping chair in the pit garage.

2:52.6777 2:22.2164 2:18.7393
2:23.7090 2:25.2343 2:26.4003 
2:27.5631 2:19.1431 2:39.3178 

After lunch, the rain cleared and there were hints of blue sky coming through the clouds. Jim and Kam came in from their session saying the track was dry and it felt good again. They coaxed me out of my state of paralysis and urged me to go out on track again. I summoned up my courage and went out a few more times and managed to clock a 1:56 for the day, 2 seconds off my PB.

2:00.8560 2:01.7158 2:03.3368 
1:57.8846 1:56.6356 1:57.8540 
1:58.2481 1:59.6975 1:58.5290

Looking at the speed comparison between my 1:54.59 (green) and 1:56.64 (red) laps, I found that the main difference was on the straight and turn 1. I wasn't as fast as my PB lap because I only managed to reach 215 kph and was slower through turn 1, probably due to my confidence level not being the norm; leading to tentative throttle out of turn 12 and over braking for turn 1.

What's interesting is that my speeds for the rest of the track was actually faster with the 1:56 lap, as can be send below (1:56 on the right). Most noticeably, my top speed out of Stoner corner was faster and I slowed down less at Siberia and MG. Could this be attributed to the new track surface providing more grip? Or also the new tyres?

At the end of the day I was disappointed that I had lost some feeling for driving close to the limit at Phillip Island, but I was glad I was driving home in one piece. I'm now keen to get back there again. Thanks again to Jim and Kam for the company and support.

The hoarding continueSL

These arrived about a month ago...

No surprise what they are - more TE37 Super Laps. This time, they are 18 x 10J +20 and they will live at the front of the Z as street wheels.

Here they are shod with 255/40R18 Hankook V12 Evo (K110).

Left: Before - 18 x 9.5J +22 with 245/45R18
Right: After - 18 x 10.0J +20 with 255/40R18

And a couple more happy snaps.

[Video] 2 Laps @ Sentul

While I was in Indonesia last month, I had the opportunity to drive my friend Silas' BMW E30 race car - Shirosame. Silas booked Sentul Internation Circuit just outside Jakarta for a day to let us all try driving his race car. Thank you Silas!

The day was wet, the rain poured down just after midday and it was an awesome experience taking to a soaked track in a race car I had never driven before, let alone a car without ABS. We each had enough time for 2 laps, but it was one of the best 2 laps of my on track driving experiences.

Here's a video of my friend Desmond driving.

Nismo GT LSD Pro 1.5 Way

Time to get a little more serious, so I purchased one of these - a Nismo GT LSD Pro 1.5 Way. The kit is very comprehensive and contains everything to make installing it as smooth as possible. Along with the LSD, you get replacement ring gear bolts, side bearings, oil seals, washers for the drain/filler plugs, differential fluid; and most notably, side flanges (which appear to be two right hand side OEM flanges).

With an install of this magnitude, I enlisted the help of my friend +Dan, the master mechanic. A guide on how to install the LSD can be found here, so I'll just show a few photos. Here, the OEM diff and housing has been removed from the car.

It was then transported in the back of Dan's green FTO in Lancer's clothing, scrubbing all the way to a secret location...

...

Here, we set about using the air tool to do the hard work.

 The diff housing cover was removed first.

This is the OEM viscous unit.

With the viscous unit removed from the housing, it was time to remove the ring gear. This will be reused on the new LSD.

Ring gear is off...

The inside of the housing and ring gear were given a good degreasing. The old gasket goo was also cleaned of the rim of the housing.

The ring gear is all clean, ready to be attached to the Nismo LSD behind it. The bearings have also been pushed on to each end of the LSD.

Carefully bolting the ring gear on with a mallet.

Then tighten the bolts with the air tool.

The bolts were torqued to spec as well.

Carefully lowering the LSD (with bearing outer races attached) into the housing.

It was a tight fit, but it has to be. After some struggle to get the LSD into the housing and have everything bolted back together, I didn't take any more photos. It was simply a matter of bolting everything back together in reverse order of how it was dismantled. I left the initial torque setting of the LSD in the middle setting.

With the new diff installed and bedded in, my initial impressions are that it locks strongly and provides very good feedback about the grip available mid corner when provoked. I seem to also be able to point the nose of the car better mid corner compared to using the OEM diff. Now I wait for a track day to really test it.