Today was my first time trying out my new RE-01R (225/45R18) tires along with the new alignment. Car started without problems this morning. I'd been a bit worried after it failed to start on Saturday. Problems seem resolved today on that front.
The shuto expressway is a good test of a cars settings as its twisty enough and the speed is just right. Traveling up to Tsukuba the car felt a little different than before. I wasn't too sure why. Tires seemed comfy enough but something felt strange. Sorted this out at the gas station. Turns out the pressures were uneven. I'd asked Super Autobacs to put 220 kpa in each tire but they were sitting on 250 and 230 on different wheels. Can't those guys get anything right? Anyway set them all at 240 with the garage guage and hit the track. At the circuit I decided to start my front left at 225 and the others at 230 on my gauge to see where they'd go.
First session I took it easy enough for the first bit exploring the tires. They felt really solid in terms of grip. I really felt the back sliding very nicely into turns in a very controlled manner. I didn't really look at lap times but got a 1'10.699 on the 2nd last lap. I was dying to explore more. After coming back in front right was 280, back left and front right were 270 and the rear right was 260. I set all tires to 260.
Second session I started to have problems changing gears :-( During a shift up from 2nd to 3rd it would grind. It would grid also dropping gears. Even 4th to 3rd became hap-hazzard. Hmmm. Syncro? I tried to change as carefully as possible but it wasn't possible. Sometimes the gear would not engage. This seemed to happen only at high revs and only after the car had heated up. I was thinking my gear oil is not right for the car or something. I'd just added some new Speed Master Pro Super Gear Oil SAE:75W-90, so this was a little upsetting. This made getting a decent lap time quite hard as missing 3rd to 2nd coming into a hairpin can really throw the car off the line/speed not to mention balance.
I decided to do the last session to see what way gear changes would behave during the first few laps. Sure enough, problem seemed resolved only for it to resurface after about 4 laps. Gear oil seems to be the culprit. Hope I didn't destroy my synchros too much today or cause any other damage. I think I was as gentle as I could be.
Anyway - back to the tires and alignment. I can't really tell you much about the tires alone except that they are as good as the ADVANs. Braking is better with the RE01Rs. With the ADVANS its very easy to lock the wheels where as the RE01Rs really did a good job of stopping me. This is not just a recent thing about the ADVANs either. They were like that from the start. The tires also looked a lot better after 3 hard sessions today than I remember the ADVANs looking which is a positive sign. The sidewalls didn't get quite as eaten as they did on the ADVANs.
Alignment was amazing. Felt excellent. Turning into the corners the back would come around very gradually. Great sense of security in how the car moved. Never felt it was going to go into wild over-steer like my older setting would sometimes send me. Todays best time was on the 4th lap of the 3rd session. Each session I got faster apart from the last few laps where I was nursing the gears.
Weather wise it was quite hot today. 19 degrees!
Including all sessions, top 5 times for the record were:
1. 1'10.254 - 28.520 28.868 12.866 - 152.392 km/h
2. 1'10.422 - 28.413 29.350 12.659 - 153.562 km/h
3. 1'10.493 - 28.854 28.839 12.800 - 153.061 km/h
4. 1'10.699 - 28.643 28.979 13.077 - 150.880 km/h
5. 1'10.787 - 28.699 29.179 12.909 - 150.670 km/h
My best sector times give me a best virtual lap of 1'09.801. So at least that's still on the cars. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't do a faster time today but the gear issues mad driving fast quite difficult. Oh well - take heart and look forward to the next one.
As a side note: I was in the A group today. Its pretty interesting when there are a lot of fast cars around. It made things pretty fun. I didn't really have to wait up at all. The other side of that is though, most people seem to just attack one lap and then sleep until their cars recovered. That was painful at times as there was always someone to watch out for. I like to just go-go-go all the time.
I didn't notice an appreciable difference in the plugs. Its hard to tell though as I was concentrating mostly on my tires and alignment.
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2 comments:
You will never notice plug until they fail to deliver :p. The best is to go to Fuji Speedway with limiter gone you can see the car climb better at 7000rpm on 4th gear... hehe.
I am sure your gear will be solved by now. How is the brake fluid looking? Something clutch can bring this problem.
Yep, can't say that I notice the plugs performance-wise so far. Engine sound is a little different though.
Sure enough the gear fluid seems to have done the trick. I'd recommend the motul stuff. Its quite slick. Brake fluid is holding out very nicely. No problems there.
Clutch seems to be fine too although I could probably do with a fluid change.
Next big fluid change is gonna be Coolant again to prepare for the colder weather we are having recently. I'll do that this weekend I think.
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