5/2017 NJMP AER race
Friday Qualy/Practice: new final drive ratio is excellent and much less frantic. Started having issues with the rear brakes locking once heat got into them under even the slightest amount of brake pressure. SOB…
Porterfield’s pad shape template turned out to be a bit off. When the rotor would expand from proper heat, the very top portion of the pad was getting caught up on the circumference/edge of the rotor and created way too much friction. Nothing a good ol’ 4.5” angle grinder flapper disc wheel couldn’t deal with though. I hit the top of the pad so it wasn’t overhanging on the rotor edge anymore. They probably don’t sell many Z32 rear applications at all so as irritating as it is, it was an easy fix. They’ve updated their template now.
Dealing with that ate up a couple of hours so we didn’t get a ton of laps in for qualy. We ended up qualifying in class 4, 11th overall behind some impressive hardware.
Saturday starting grid in front of us:
Another Nissan in a sea of BMW’s:
And another!:
Y’all remember ‘CodyAce’ on this forum? Here he is wishing he still drove his S14 and had radial mount FSL6R’s! lol:
Saturday was the best day of racing yet for this car. We finished 3rd overall (58 cars) and 2nd in class. We got pushed into Class 5 once the slightly faster of the faster driver pair (hopefully he reads this ) got into his groove 30ish minutes in at the start. Good, clean driving all around. Brakes felt the best yet, even though there’s definitely less initial bite on the ST43 vs. DTC-60, but longevity isn’t even close (pics below). They are also just as loud though.
Big negative; 5th gear synchro now took a sh!t also.
The Saturday results determines starting grid for Sunday so we were P2 next to some proper hardware. We are the only car at the front that runs basically zero aero. Comical. Now it’s a pride thing being aero-less :
Sunday P1, 2, and 3:
Green!:
Sunday was going great until our exhaust decided to partially fall off toward the end :embarrassing: Someone forgot to fully tighten some exhaust flange bolts in the muffler (me). That caused us to finish mid-pack for Sunday.
Passing 2 modern Nissan machines at the beginning and end of the same lap:
https://youtu.be/PQVwbcpIsik?t=46m41s
Because class 5 is typically the class of attrition, we actually finished P2 overall in class for the weekend. Great result for the team.
Core4 podium:
About those brakes, check out wear of the ST43 pads inside the FSL6R after 15 hours of racing:
I didn’t believe we raced when I saw how much they wore. Zero taper issues and what looks to be multiple race weekends on a single set of pads. Amazing consumable efficiency. I also don’t run any brake ducting at all.
Alignment and setup also seems to work ok. Maybe squeeze more camber out in front. Here’s a Falken RT615K+ after 14 hours of track time. Outside edge facing up:
Unfortunately, that was the end of our 2017 AER campaign. We really wanted to hit Summit Point and Mid-Ohio, but life/family and tow rig issues prevented that from happening.