NSW Club Track Day @ Wakefield - 17 February 2008

[Li7hium]

This year, with the change to the roll bar rule,

What change?

Looking forward to seeing you at the Super Sprint meets Phil!

Matt

[Charlie Brown]

This year, with the change to the roll bar rule,

What change?

Looking forward to seeing you at the Super Sprint meets Phil!

Matt

You can now run soft top production cars without a roll bar.
However if an aftermarket bar is fitted, ie Brown Davis, it must comply with the 50mm (2") clearance above the helmet rule.
Go figure Surely any bar is better than none.

That means any stock/modified MX-5 can enter the Series and I'm in Class 2B

[greenMachine]

Look forward to seeing you there CB, it will be good to have another MX5 in 2B.

We need all the help we can get to deal with those pesky Integra Type Rs

[idb000]

Hey all. I have now uploaded some photos from Sunday. There are quite a few photos actually. Photobucket wouldn't let me put them all in one album, so I have divided them into On and Off Track albums. Hope you enjoy!

Off Track Action
On Track Action

And just for Marcus, here are a few from turn 2

I only caught the tail end of this spin







But a few laps later, this happened...
















Ian

[AJ]

hehehehehe...........it's like reading a comic where you KNOW what's gunna happen, but you read it & laugh anyway

love the way the NA stuck to his line & sailed blithely past the dust monster..............carn, fess up, you blew him a raspberry didn't ya???

even squeezed him a bit going in just to make sure

[idb000]

[Hellmun]

NB8A or B? (255mm or 270mm rotors) Fade might be the fluid moreso than the pads. Time for some \"real\" track pads like hawk blues. As a comparison, my car runs 550deg front rotor temps on average..... but thats with a 295x26mm rotor with a 4 pot caliper running Hawk DTC60s. 450c was where the old NA car ran on the 255mm rotor with Hawk blues. The DS3000s won't bit as well as the blues, but are a race pad so watch them on the road.

NB8B with the 270mm rotors. Reason I think it's the pads is actually because my pedal travel didnt' change. If I thought I was killing the RBF600 I would've expected my foot to be pushing the floor. Instead I had my foot standard travel distance but the car just wouldn't pull up. No friction. I think I noticed some white edges around my middle marker as well (orange i think). Other reason is I took the pads down macquarie pass the next day after I initially burned them in to check them...I may have had semi-slicks on at the time

Three corners down and my brakes were gone, tested them hard on a straight pieces of road and when I was doing about 5kph..I had smoke coming off both sides of the car. Only thing changed was the pads at that point(was still running standard rotors as the DBA's were on order and due late feb). I pulled over and checked them with the infra-red temp gun and had 370C on them. Not a single bubble in the master cylinder either. Maybe it was just a bad batch of HP+ but this is the first time I've had fade...the DS2500's were doing the same job (maybe slightly lower friction at the limit) but they just kept on going for 9000k's of abuse and I only had fade with them on the car once.... in 12 months with a lot of trackdays.

I'll pull the pads off this weekend, getting severely bogged down at work atm so I guess they'll tell a story if they're coming apart. Also will be getting a new lot of RBF600 put through by Peter at Brakesmart. Just incase.

[marcusus]

Great snaps

Need to learn how to change lines for the speed I'm on...

That was actually not too bad an off because I didn't spin it. Just kept it going rally style.

[greenMachine]

I *knew* I saw a green MX out there with the radio on - perhaps that explains a few things

That is what is known as 'missing the apex' , need to be sure if you are taking someone through T1 that you can get back over to the left to your turn-in point, or slow down enough to make the apex from the middle of the track. Nice recovery though!

[Tezzax5]

Excellent of pics...all except one photo (orange and white VE ute..YUK) The car not the photo..

Favorite one is the white NA about to lift a wheel..

Looked like a lot of fun.

[CT]

I pulled over and checked them with the infra-red temp gun and had 370C on them. Not a single bubble in the master cylinder either. Maybe it was just a bad batch of HP+ but this is the first time I've had fade...the DS2500's were doing the same job (maybe slightly lower friction at the limit) but they just kept on going for 9000k's of abuse and I only had fade with them on the car once.... in 12 months with a lot of trackdays.

The RBF does need to be changed regularly. The race cars that use it flush it every race (not meeting) to keep it fresh. HPs is still only a hard core street pad - you need more headroom in temp. I reckon your issue could be transfer layer and bedding related. With trackdays, I got just over 40k from a set of DS2500s. When a pad is not bedded properly, it will tend to wear really poorly - rotor too.

[Hellmun]

The RBF does need to be changed regularly. The race cars that use it flush it every race (not meeting) to keep it fresh. HPs is still only a hard core street pad - you need more headroom in temp. I reckon your issue could be transfer layer and bedding related. With trackdays, I got just over 40k from a set of DS2500s. When a pad is not bedded properly, it will tend to wear really poorly - rotor too.

Brakesmart actually broke in my initial set of DS2500's (I picked them up same time I had the braided lines put in the front) so I'd think they were done right. Also with the hawks I followed their website exactly, 8 almost stops from 80kph, then 8 from 120+ without cooldown time and I had no ducting to block. Then I let them cool down to 50C on the pads while I read a book off the side of the road. Pads felt really good to the touch(they felt much more grabby than the ferodo's) after that. So I expected them to be fine. I've since done an EC and Wakefield with fade problems.

Dave from Competition friction said the ferodo's are rated upto about 600C but even past that they don't fade. They just wear much faster which does seem plausible to what I've seen on my car.

I actually had no idea you changed fluid that much, when I cooked the standard brake fluid I literally had an inch of bubbles in my master cylinder and my foot was to the floor so it was obvious. I've never seen a single movement in the RBF600 which I was expecting to see when it went off so to speak. On his advice I was actually going to start taking the pads out when I get home from a trackday and pushing the caliper back out with the bleed nipple open to clear out the fluid in the caliper.

I'm tempted to just change pads and see if it gets better but It really ruins your day getting brake fade. Fresh fluid, pads and I'll see if brakesmart can burn my pads brake-in and I'll sit along. See if I'm doing something wrong.

I keep records so I can say this for certain.

Front Ferodo Pads 12/3/2007 (39,150 - 47,800k)
RBF600 Brake Fluid 12/3/2007 (39,150 - current)

Whole time I had no fade on the track until I put in the HP+. The HP+ have however slowly been getting better.... but by 2 trackdays after my initial burn-in I would've thought I'd done enough. Combined with actually seeing something burning off when I come to a big stop... still learning a lot though in racing but that's been my thought process.

[marcusus]

I *knew* I saw a green MX out there with the radio on - perhaps that explains a few things

Har. I actually had the stereo turned off the entire day, except for the drive there/back.

That is what is known as 'missing the apex' , need to be sure if you are taking someone through T1 that you can get back over to the left to your turn-in point, or slow down enough to make the apex from the middle of the track. Nice recovery though!

Yeah, was focused too much on keeping to the lines I knew rather than adapting for new lines. Really need to learn to overtake on the track
I thought the recovery was quite good. I only lost maybe a second or two that lap I think. I managed to slow down a fair bit considering how hot I was coming in for the corner.

[Li7hium]

Full results up on the Club website:

www.mx5.com.au/nsw/motorsport.htm

Matt

[gobsmax]

great pictures.....good work!

was a fun day out on the track...drove down with the club...learnt lots and met heaps of people

definitely recommended for any newbie