C-West Carbon Fibre Side Skirts

I spent a couple of hours in the afternoon installing the side skirts I bought a couple of weeks before. Thanks Shaun for arranging a bargain price for me and thanks Vu for selling them to me.

Fitting the side skirt was the easy part, but in order to do that, I first had to remove stock side skirt. That was a bit of a painful process as the stock skirts have a row of clips that snap into the chassis. I did my best to not damage anything, but in pulling on one of the clips, it ripped the bracket right off the stock skirt. T_T no biggy. Thanks Shaun and Jules for helping with the install.
The C-West skirts are well manufactured, with all the holes for bolts and clips all properly aligned with the holes on the chassis. Here are pics of the results.

Before:

After:

Tampered Motorsport Track Day - Winton Raceway

So, having installed the Cusco A Arms, my goal for this track day was to get into 1:44s. Any time lower than that would be a bonus.

Here's a break down of the sessions:

Session 1
1:54.0220
1:44.9480
1:44.1000
1:44.7290
1:44.8180
1:45.0640
1:45.1660
1:46.1860
1:45.7470
1:45.1690
1:45.8120
1:46.3600

Session 2
1:54.7570
1:45.4550
1:44.5410
2:08.4580
1:45.4270
1:46.0180
1:47.3460
1:46.6440

Session 3
1:54.3320
1:48.6280
1:47.8050
1:47.4660
1:52.1090
1:46.3280
2:12.8730
1:56.7610

Session 1 was by far my best session. I was getting consistent 1:45s, which was good. My new PB was also set on the third lap in this session - 1:44.1. The temperature was beginning to warm up and I guess my tyres were optimal on the third lap. From there it just went downhill. My new PB is probably mostly attributed to the negative camber and not an improvement in skill.

Session 2 was my second best session. The day was getting hotter and I only managed to do consistent 1:45 - 1:46. On lap 4, I lost it on the long sweeper, hence the 2:08. I tried taking the sweeper at 140kph, but I was in 3rd gear at high revs and the tail of the car stepped out too much on me. I went sliding onto the grass and kicked some dirt on to the track, sorry guys. After speaking to Silas, he said that I wouldn't have lost it if I was in 4th gear, so that's something to try next time.

Session 3 - The day was getting quite hot and my tyres overheated on lap 7. I tried taking half a cool down lap, but the grip just wasn't there on the next lap. So, I decided to pack it in for the day and save my tyres for the next track day. I spoke briefly to Scott from Chasers at the end of the day and he too commented that the track seemed more slippery.

Overall, I'm happy with the result.

Specs for the day:

• K&N panel air filter
  
• 17" Nismo LMGT4 with 225/45/17 Bridgestone RE55S
  
• Cusco front upper A arms with -1.5 degrees camber
• Motul RBF600 brake fluid
  

Overall results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?06/11/2007.WIN.P1

Individual results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?06/11/2007.WIN.P1.I

Installation of Cusco Upper Arms

After I received the Cusco upper arms, I realised that they did not include a metal collar which is a seat for the ball joint as it meets the knuckle. After numerous emails back and forth between the vendor and myself, I was told that Cusco "redesigned the ball joint and the metal collar from the stock A arms can be reused". So, I purchased another pair of collars from Nissan (because I couldn't get the originals off the stock A arms.

One day before the Tampered Motorsport track day, Shaun installed the A arms for me. Thank you very much. I set them on maximum negative camber (-12mm) and was ready to see what they could do for me.