First track day

[tmontague]

Completed my first open lapping day at my locals track (Toronto Motorsports Park, the same track that Youtube channel "Speed Academy" frequents when they test their builds. It's a 3km track with a lot of open runoffs so it's a great place to learn.

I was running 949 racing 6ul 15x7 +24 rims on BFGoodrich R1's (slicks)

I had a blast and the Vios ran flawlessly, not a single hiccup. Oil pressure was down to about 5psi at idle post cool down laps, and oil termps peaked around 250 degrees. The coolant only ever got to 208 degrees and that was at idle after the cool down laps (ambient temps were close to 90 degree). During lapping the coolant temps hovered around 190 degrees which is barely above normal driving temps.

Brakes showed no sign of fade and they still have pad left on them. The rear brakes seemed to have worn slightly as the e brake clicks an extra 2 or 3 times now when applied. I was doing 20-25min or so sessions (not including cool down) and the engine was consistently between 4k and 6.5k rpm. Never skipped a beat and puled like crazy the whole time.

This session really highlighted the short falls of my build so far. One main focus is the open differential. The inside front wheel was spinning like crazy if I applied anything above 50% throttle during cornering. An LSD is the next big thing to do on this car. The other area if the oem drivers seat. I was floating around inside the cabin the whole time. Once the LSD is installed it will be time to find me a racing seat that I can DD on. Need to keep my ass planted.

Surprisingly the suspension felt decent and the car had a tenancy to over steer. I only ended up spinning out once but 4 or 5 other times I was able to catch myself and keep it on the track. My current set up is stiffer rear dampers which results in the slight over steer but on KYB excel G front struts I was surprised that the car didn't seem to wallow or dip too much.

I'll be heading out in a few weeks again to work on giving it throttle when I start to over steer instead of only counter steering. This is way too much fun, I can see why people say you become addicted. Being able to push a car that I've built to the limit is an awesome feeling.

Some feedback i received from a few guys I met out at the track who tagged along in the passenger seat on some hot laps were: "wow this car is fast and pulls hard", "damn this car sounds nice" and "you really know how to handle this car" - all of them were new to the track so take that with a grain of salt.