Mx5 Mania Track Day

[Charlie Brown]

Well fingers crossed, I'm hoping to make it down there (>90%) if I'm not too buggered after coming in from Brizzie the night before.
I'll need to fit the track wheels, sleep, etc if Bluey is to have any chance of seeing how good Dave's NC is.
I'm hoping someone down there will be able to operate a stop watch for me.

[marcusus]

but i have a concert the night before

Infected Mushroom?

Don't worry about markus, he doesn't need to come to the track, he's taken half of it with him back to sydney so he's still actually driving on it.
Marcus just tell them you have uni on monday, worked for me. Hey you said you were getting smashed on the weekend, not working.

Technically the track's hitching a lift off me...
@ telling work I'm at uni. It might work when your job has nothing to do with university, but considering I have this job because of my degree, I think it'd be a bit sus if I said "yeah, I'm going to class, can't come to work"
And I still intend on going out on the weekend. I'm working Monday, which is the whole point

Your teins must be pretty good though surely (but not enough to cover the deficit in this case )

Nowhere near enough to match the charger. That being said, they definitely worked a treat. Need to tweak them more for the right settings. I think I'm gonna up the stiffness on them again this weekend actually.

[Sasso]

Don't worry about markus, he doesn't need to come to the track, he's taken half of it with him back to sydney so he's still actually driving on it.
Marcus just tell them you have uni on monday, worked for me. Hey you said you were getting smashed on the weekend, not working.

Technically the track's hitching a lift off me...
@ telling work I'm at uni. It might work when your job has nothing to do with university, but considering I have this job because of my degree, I think it'd be a bit sus if I said "yeah, I'm going to class, can't come to work"
And I still intend on going out on the weekend. I'm working Monday, which is the whole point

Your teins must be pretty good though surely (but not enough to cover the deficit in this case )

Nowhere near enough to match the charger. That being said, they definitely worked a treat. Need to tweak them more for the right settings. I think I'm gonna up the stiffness on them again this weekend actually.

Bummer, just say they forgot to teach you something, like some new funky code.
Hey can you go back and bring the rest of the track up so we don't have to drive so far to get there?

You going to show your shocks some porn again?
But seriously, I wouldn't just go blindly adjusting them, read up some engineering books on what changing the settings will do to the car. You'd be surprised, once you know how to drive well, how much quicker a well balanced car can be, harder isn't necessarily faster. Its front to rear balance.
You'd give a poorly setup or dríven super or turbo a run for its money. Some guys there were doing 1:12's with fairly standard engines, that means you have another 8 or so seconds available without needing a super. However, more power is more fun!

SM any update on whether you can come??

[marcusus]

You going to show your shocks some porn again?

Say what?
Where did I mention anything about porn?

But seriously, I wouldn't just go blindly adjusting them, read up some engineering books on what changing the settings will do to the car.

It's not so much blindly adjusting them. I've noticed in my general driving that it is to do with balancing the fronts with the rears. I think I've got the balance about right, but it's just a matter of getting the car to corner flatter in general. Stiffer settings = flatter cornering (at least in my experience thus far with adjusting the stiffness), so I'll keep the relative difference between the stiffness about the same, but change how stiff they are absolutely.

You'd be surprised, once you know how to drive well, how much quicker a well balanced car can be, harder isn't necessarily faster. Its front to rear balance.

I don't doubt that. However, I would much prefer to get things incrementally better, irrespective of which it is. It's silly perfecting how to drive a car that's not set up properly, because you'll have to relearn how to drive a properly set up car. That being said, the time taken to learn will be a lot less, but that's not the point. The sooner I change and fiddle with the settings to see if they're correct, the sooner I can have the setup which works best and the less "bad learning" I have to do.

You'd give a poorly setup or dríven super or turbo a run for its money. Some guys there were doing 1:12's with fairly standard engines, that means you have another 8 or so seconds available without needing a super. However, more power is more fun!

Oh I know. I doubt I'll be going forced induction for quite some time. I have much to learn before I even think about going down that path.

Ideally, the learning curve should be something along the lines of:
- Learn the car as it is
- Upgrade
- Tweak & trial the upgrade until it's at its optimum
- Learn the car with the upgrade working at its optimum
- Upgrade
- Tweak & trial the upgrade until it's at its optimum
- Learn the car with the upgrade working at its optimum
- rinse/repeat ad infinitum

At the moment I'm still tweaking the shocks, but the thing is, I'm not gonna know whether I can get them any better or worse without playing with them.

[Sasso]

Say what?
Where did I mention anything about porn?

It's not so much blindly adjusting them. I've noticed in my general driving that it is to do with balancing the fronts with the rears. I think I've got the balance about right, but it's just a matter of getting the car to corner flatter in general. Stiffer settings = flatter cornering (at least in my experience thus far with adjusting the stiffness), so I'll keep the relative difference between the stiffness about the same, but change how stiff they are absolutely.

I don't doubt that. However, I would much prefer to get things incrementally better, irrespective of which it is. It's silly perfecting how to drive a car that's not set up properly, because you'll have to relearn how to drive a properly set up car. That being said, the time taken to learn will be a lot less, but that's not the point. The sooner I change and fiddle with the settings to see if they're correct, the sooner I can have the setup which works best and the less "bad learning" I have to do.

Oh I know. I doubt I'll be going forced induction for quite some time. I have much to learn before I even think about going down that path.

Ideally, the learning curve should be something along the lines of:
- Learn the car as it is
- Upgrade
- Tweak & trial the upgrade until it's at its optimum
- Learn the car with the upgrade working at its optimum
- Upgrade
- Tweak & trial the upgrade until it's at its optimum
- Learn the car with the upgrade working at its optimum
- rinse/repeat ad infinitum

At the moment I'm still tweaking the shocks, but the thing is, I'm not gonna know whether I can get them any better or worse without playing with them.

lol never mind. Just me being stupid.

Quick question, will passengers be allowed on the track this time, there's no timing so I'm guessin yes?


See you just proved my point. Making the shocks "stiffer" does not make the car corner flatter. Anti sway bars and stiffer springs will do that. You're actually adjusting the damping force on the shocks. Which I assume adjusts the bump and rebound at the same time unless you have 2 different settings on each of your shocks that cost a fortune. The damping controls how quickly the suspension moves, remember over damped circuits or masses from uni?. The dampers will affect the transition of movement so they affect the corner entry and exit but not the middle of the corner where the car suspension is not actually moving up or down.

So you see, if you don't know the effects then how do you know what direction to tune them and make your car faster, you'd be testing for ever, every combination, and is one of the reasons people waste money on the tein electronic adjuster which is more at home in an F1 than a road car, not even F3's have it, you don't actually change it that often, and a lot of thought is put in before it is. Buy some books with the money, set it to the best setting, write it down and then leave it.

At your stage right now best thing to do it get a decent wheel alignment learn the proper racing lines and technique like heel and toe and just practice with the car the way it is, leave the settings still, until you hit a wall, should be about 1:19 or you're not driving fast enough, after that it will take more tuning like wheel alignmnet, tyre pressures and more practice to gain a few more seconds and then things like tuning sway bars, shocks, using semi slicks, chasis stiffening and driving to the absolute limit will get you the rest of the way. Adjusting your shocks now could be making the car worse even though it might feel better the way you drive now, if you know what I mean.

If you want to learn how to set your car up properly read the book called Tune to Win, its really really good. And play some GT to practice lines and consistency/concentration.

Don't worry you'll be getting 1:12's in no time.

[Alex]

I won't be heading down on Sunday, cost and lack of sleep are factors

[Ajay]

good ill have atleast 1 driving buddy

[Sasso]

Passengers are allowed right?

[marcusus]

See you just proved my point. Making the shocks "stiffer" does not make the car corner flatter. Anti sway bars and stiffer springs will do that. You're actually adjusting the damping force on the shocks. Which I assume adjusts the bump and rebound at the same time unless you have 2 different settings on each of your shocks that cost a fortune. The damping controls how quickly the suspension moves, remember over damped circuits or masses from uni?. The dampers will affect the transition of movement so they affect the corner entry and exit but not the middle of the corner where the car suspension is not actually moving up or down.

Perhaps so, but irrespective of what they do and don't, after stiffening up the coilovers (if you wanna be technical ) seems to give better cornering ability.

So you see, if you don't know the effects then how do you know what direction to tune them and make your car faster, you'd be testing for ever, every combination

There's not all that many combinations. I already know for a fact that the fronts need to be set stiffer than the rears, otherwise I'll oversteer, so that rules out a fair few options. And logically, you wouldn't want one end of the spectrum to be the complete opposite of the other, so that rules out another whole bunch of possibilities. In the end, I've only really got maybe about 8 possibilities to play with, from what I"m currently at now, all the way to full stiff at the fronts, with the rears increasing by the same amount of stiffness as the fronts (perhaps a little bit of play with +/-1 on the rears), so that's not so impossible. I much prefer to prove things for myself rather than just take the word of a book or someone else, even if they're 100% correct.

At your stage right now best thing to do it get a decent wheel alignment learn the proper racing lines and technique like heel and toe and just practice with the car the way it is, leave the settings still, until you hit a wall, should be about 1:19 or you're not driving fast enough, after that it will take more tuning like wheel alignmnet, tyre pressures and more practice to gain a few more seconds and then things like tuning sway bars, shocks, using semi slicks, chasis stiffening and driving to the absolute limit will get you the rest of the way. Adjusting your shocks now could be making the car worse even though it might feel better the way you drive now, if you know what I mean.

In the end, the best thing that will improve times is practice. Caff's sig says he's pulling 1:16's in a stock NB8B, so I should be pulling at least that in mine, if not more, once I know what I'm doing. Of course, getting everything set correctly with what I have will make a world of difference in getting to that time faster, but in the end, practice will be the most beneficial thing.

and [/end massive OT posting].

[MxJadeMonkey]

Sorry Guys,

I have just replaced my clutch and radiator all in one day, so flat out for now.



maybe next time.

so pissed off too. i wanted to go.

[Alex]

Passengers are allowed right?

no passengers I believe
Ajay where did you want to meet before heading down together? since MxJadeMonkey isn't coming I guess we will have to organise ourselves.
anyone else interested in meeting up in Syd before driving down together?

[Ajay]

where do you live Alex?.. we can meet at a nice central location.. (do you have a GPS, if so your driving ahead)... im hopless with maps and other such things!

[Alex]

I'm in wahroonga, about 10-15 mins from mania

[Sasso]

Its really really easy to get to Wakefield.

On the Maps point B is the popular meeting point, its a mobil petrol station, the first station along the highway so its hard to miss, its huge.

This is the quick way Starting from the M7 M5 Hume intersection:
SHORT WAY

Basically zoom in on point c, you take the first hwy exit after goulburn and then turn left, there is like an animal stopper grate on the floor so go slow over it, then go to the end of that road and turn right then be very careful when you are heading down the left hand turn down hill under the bridge, its very tight and blind and almost every time someone has come around on the wrong side of the road and taken years off my life, turn right at the end of that and then keep going till you see wakefield.

Not sure why the Club didn't go this way on the run, but oh well, secrets out.

And this is the longer way through the city if you need to get petrol or something, point C is where the Alpine Heritage Hotel is, where we stay the night:
LONG WAY

Basically you take the goulburn exit and then after a while go past maccas on the left, then take a left and the first lights, they have a petrol station on the corner that has premium if you need it. Keep going down that road for ages then turn left to go over the train tracks bridge, then follow that road for a while until you see wakefield.


The distances is about 160km for both ways the the first way you are doing 110km/h for a long way, as opposed to 50km/h through the city.


From my house it states that the journey is 219km and 3 hours, but its more like 2 hours if you average 110km/h which isn't that hard, its pretty much turn out of driveway onto m7 100-120km/h, hume 110-130km/h, braidwood 100-110km/h, so there isn't much slowing down involved.
Now imagine we were a good country like Germany and could do 200km/h, we could get to wakefield in 1 hour, how good's that

Good luck and have safe trips, music helps, as does having a train of cars to follow.

[marcusus]

SHORT WAY

= 169km

LONG WAY

= 165km

I'd say the short way is the long way and the long way is the short way

I found the "long way" very easy. Sure you might have to go 50 once you get in to town, but the bonus is that you can move your feet a bit by using all 3 pedals. That being said, another 5 minutes on the Hume won't hurt.

If you go the "long way", take the first Goulburn exit you see off the freeway, then take the left at the first set of lights you see. Then just follow. The railway bridge isn't mega obvious, but nor is it all that easy to miss either.