Well had my first HPDE weekend this past weekend. I was at NCCAR, google that to see their site, and it is a great place to learn! I pushed the car harder than I thought it could go and learned so much about how to use the car in that environment. I had HUGE improvement from my first lap on my first session to my last of my last session on Sunday. My instructor after the first day said my driving was night and day. Sunday we worked at getting more aggressive and finding more in the car. I was tearing up the S2000's in HPDE 1 with me and I ate a 350Z several times. And we had a GT-R that was in HPDE 2 on Saturday get bumped down for Sunday to DE 1 and yeah I ate him too...lol. He was def scared of his car...lol. I out ran lots of cars that you wouldnt think possible. I know a lot of it comes down to driver and them not pushing the car as hard for whatever reason. But I built mine to push!
On my last lap of my final session coming out of turn 4 I heard a back fire sound and shortly after it didnt feel right. At turn 13 (final turn) I knew something was way off. We got the checker for our cool down lap and at about 3k rpm I was hearing a blow by type sound. Sounded like an exhaust leak. We get it back and let it cool down because idle and everything was fine. Only at 3k up was it weird. Turns out I pretty much torched my cat and it plugged up causing me to blow my gasket at the header/cat. So, Sunday I ran open header and tore it up all day! I then had to drive the 1.5hrs home with an open header...lol. DEAF!!!...lol.
Here are a couple pics for now. Maybe have some more a little later
Coming down the front straight at about 110mph. By the last couple sessions on Sunday I had a sweet line coming out of the turns before it and was able to get 120mph near the end and bang rev limiter. There was no reason to up shift as the front straight comes up to a hairpin turn. And I was getting close enough to the brake zone that it was safer to just ride it out than take more and dig the brakes even harder.
Toyo Proxes RA1
Before (Stock photo)...
After- two days and about 210mi on track...Oh, and that torn up side is not from inner camber because thats the outside of the tire
Im running 225/45/15's
And a short clip of me heading home on the open header...lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ82VcHzm5c
