First and formost, I want to thank all of you for posting your different experiences with these cars on the track! It gave me a good idea of what needed to be done to mine to prepare it and what I could leave alone.
So I hit the local track (PBIR, So. Florida) with my '06 V last night for one of SCCA's new "track nights in america". Very laid-back event, I highly recommend it. It was only a half day deal, so we got two 20 minute sessions and one 30 minute session. It was about 85 degrees out, and I ran in the advanced group. Not surprisingly, my brand new 340 treadwear tires turned roughly to the consistency of a gummy bear after about 10 minutes of running. I don't think I'm going to get the promised miles out of those. The stock brake pads and Motul RBF600 did a little better, but still got very soft after about 15 minutes. Like the pedal travel doubled. The ABS modulating on and off made it hard to tell whether it was fluid boiling onset or what, but I backed off after that to be safe. Next time I will pull the breaker for ABS, since it was a limiting factor during trail braking and also killed my brake feel, and will probably put on some better pads also. Surprisingly, oil temps were not an issue, but I could see them becoming one with more sessions. The engine oil temp seemed to cool down a lot between sessions, but the gearbox not so much. First session out it was low 200's, second sesh it was mid 200's, and last one it was high 200's. The only other thing I did to prepare besides brake fluid was change to red line power steering fluid, and I didn't have any issues throughout the night with that.
Overall I came away with a much greater respect for our cars! I know from racing chumpcar for the last few years that there are truly few cars out there that, with no real mods, will stand up to this kind of abuse without excreting parts or welding calipers to the rotors. So take advantage of what you've got and track your cars!
So I hit the local track (PBIR, So. Florida) with my '06 V last night for one of SCCA's new "track nights in america". Very laid-back event, I highly recommend it. It was only a half day deal, so we got two 20 minute sessions and one 30 minute session. It was about 85 degrees out, and I ran in the advanced group. Not surprisingly, my brand new 340 treadwear tires turned roughly to the consistency of a gummy bear after about 10 minutes of running. I don't think I'm going to get the promised miles out of those. The stock brake pads and Motul RBF600 did a little better, but still got very soft after about 15 minutes. Like the pedal travel doubled. The ABS modulating on and off made it hard to tell whether it was fluid boiling onset or what, but I backed off after that to be safe. Next time I will pull the breaker for ABS, since it was a limiting factor during trail braking and also killed my brake feel, and will probably put on some better pads also. Surprisingly, oil temps were not an issue, but I could see them becoming one with more sessions. The engine oil temp seemed to cool down a lot between sessions, but the gearbox not so much. First session out it was low 200's, second sesh it was mid 200's, and last one it was high 200's. The only other thing I did to prepare besides brake fluid was change to red line power steering fluid, and I didn't have any issues throughout the night with that.
Overall I came away with a much greater respect for our cars! I know from racing chumpcar for the last few years that there are truly few cars out there that, with no real mods, will stand up to this kind of abuse without excreting parts or welding calipers to the rotors. So take advantage of what you've got and track your cars!
