EXE Crew Track Day - Winton

Weather:
Hot, ambient temperature ~35 degrees Celsius.

Hot tyre pressures:

34 PSI front and rear, targeting 32 PSI.

Suspension settings:
8/12 front, 5/12 rear

Tyres:

Kumho V70A

Lap times:

S1: 1:52.8120 1:51.1150 1:40.2070 1:40.6830 1:40.2600 1:40.0280

S2: 2:00.0540 1:41.9630 1:40.3280 1:40.9150 2:05.4000 1:40.6060

S3: 1:49.4750 1:40.6430 1:40.6380

S4: 1:51.6790 1:42.1620 1:40.4390 1:53.1840 1:41.1850

Video of the best lap:

PIARC Sprints - Phillip Island

It was a track day of firsts:

• First time back at PI since 2016.
• First PI track day on the new Shockworks suspension, which kept the car well composed and predicatable. It feels like there's less body roll with the new suspension and there's better turn-in having moved back to the stock front sway bar.
• First PI track day on the Kumho V70A medium compound, which are not as sticky as the Hankook Z221 softs that I'm used to. However, the tyres fared well with just a bit of camber wear on the front right and on the outer edges of both front tyres. The PI track surface is punishing.
• First PI track day using the 370Z front brakes with Winmax W7 pads. Both pads and rotors held up well, I should probably brake harder.

Session 1: Practice - not timed

Session 2: 2:15.7832 1:56.3906 5:44.7736 2:05.9579 1:55.8379

Session 3: 2:14.2489 1:55.6335 1:54.5699 1:54.0216 1:55.2802

Session 4: 2:09.3660 1:54.4307 1:56.5406 1:55.5997 1:55.4846

Session 5: 2:14.66 1:55.57 2:01.21 1:56.40*

*From RaceChrono as times for this session were not uploaded to Natsoft.

Source: http://racing.natsoft.com.au/results/

Best lap at Phillip Island in the Z at the weekend - 1m54.0s
PB lap - 1m51.7s (April 2014)

Comparing the PB lap from 2014 to the best lap from this track day, we see that corner speeds were generally lower than the PB lap. This is most likely due to braking too early or too much and the Kumho's being not as sticky as the Hankooks.

Lighter line: 1:51.76

Video of the best lap of the day:

Looking forward to more PI track days in 2021.

New DBA rear rotors

After 8 years of hard track day driving, the rear rotors on the Z cracked at the last track day in October 2019.

I have replaced them with another pair of DBA 4000's, this time with the newer T3 slot design. 

Thank you to Michael at Autosphere for setting me up with these.

Rear left wheel bearing replacement... again!

Today the left rear wheel bearing and hub on the Z was replaced again. The existing one was replaced 5 years and 10,000 km ago. This bearing destroyed itself again after many right hand turns at Winton.

The suspected cause of its early demise was that the 32mm nut securing the drive shaft to the hub became loose over time and the amount of play allowed movement in the bearing that should not have occurred. This accelerated the wear within the bearing unit itself.

A new hub and bearing unit has been installed and the drive shaft nut now has Loctite applied and retorqued to spec. A big thank you to @silas.andrianto for the heavy lifting and mechanical advice. Time to order a spare hub and bearing!