My S2000 Weekend/Track day warrior

[plAythiNG]

Looks great Peter!

What are your alignment specs?

[Shakeel]

So this is what my car could have looked like...

I love it, absolutely love it!

[eskimo_firefighter]

wooow looking nice bro!!!!

Thanks mate!

That looks suave as hell. CE28s and Famuse front are a classic combo, looking forward to seeing it.

Thanks Tom! Haha 'Famuse'. I'm just hoping that it fits properly!

Looks great Peter!

What are your alignment specs?

Thanks Alex!

From my previous alignment update way back then. My alignment hasn't changed since, well not to my knowledge anyway haha. Will change up the alignment once I raise up the car and go a bit more aggressive since I'll be switching to R compound tyres.

Link >> Alignment Spec sheet.

So this is what my car could have looked like...

I love it, absolutely love it!

Haha! Thanks Shak! I'm certain another nice set will pop up on Yahoo auctions someday!

[eskimo_firefighter]

CE28N fitment issues.

Despite my new CE28's being only 5mm difference in offset in comparison to my previous 17x9+45 it was causing a lot of grief with all the rubbing that was occurring on the left side of the S2000. Adjustments was made to the suspension, particularly in the ride height and even the preload of the coilover in an attempt to 'stiffen' up the suspension. Which to my surprised actually helped.



Alignment has changed slightly at the front with slightly less camber and less toe out. Turns out when the S2000's suspension is raised the alignment loses a negative camber and toes in a bit. Makes sense as it uses a double wishbone configuration.

26/01/15 - Australia day tampered motorsport Winton track day.

No changes made with the car besides the Wheels and front raised up a bit.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Setup:
- 17x9+40 CE28N with non staggered 255/40 Nitto NT-05.
- Tein Monoflex coilovers
- K&n short ram intake.
- Voltex 1700mm type 2 wing
- Whiteline 32mm FSB.
- Spoon N1 Catback exhaust with Spoon test pipe

Brakes
- stock brakes
- Project MU HC+ 800 brake pads front and rear. (replaced at 120k km)
- Cusco master cylinder brake stopper.
- HEL braided brake lines
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a pretty hot day. I was not able to secure a carport so I had to park under the sun.

Blocking the tyres from the sun using a ghetto makeshift sunblocker.


I wasn't expecting much out of this day as it was quite a hot day and that the tyres has done a fair bit of work last year.

The first two sessions was just warming up and getting accustomed to changes to the car and track again. This was mainly because so many cars were breaking down and coming off the track.

3rd session - I started pushing the car as I got comfortable and the track conditions were some what ideal.
After finishing a few hot laps in this session I was very surprised on how the car handled. Finished the session and saw a 140.60 lap in my Racechrono app! I was super excited and wanted to confirm my timing at the live timing board. After staring at the screen for 3 minutes I was shocked to see that my name wasn't even on the board. Long story short my timer was faulty and I won't go into detail but I was extremely disappointed to say the least with how they dealt with the situation.





4th session - After they said my timer should be working this sssion I went out once again to try and repeat what I did in the 3rd session. Disaster then struck as my right rear tyre had a huge puncture causing rapid pressure loss. Went back to the pits and can hear the air gushing out of the tyre, not good. Not to my surprise my track timing transponder still wasn't working, haha.

That was pretty much the end of the day.



Had to install the spacesaver and called it a day. It was quite an eventful day. Despite having no official timing I at least know I'm on the right track.

I prefer not to use Racechrono as my sole lap timer, despite it being fairly consistent it is not always 100% correct. I would have much preferred if I used the track timer to confirm the lap time but not all track days can go your way.

I looked at the positives of the day and felt pretty grateful that nothing serious happened after the tyre puncture and got home safely.

Moving forward, I am re-evaluating my options regarding what kind of tyre set up I would like to use continuing on. I once again weighed up the pros and cons and I decided sticking with street tyres is the way to go.

1. More fun as there is less grip to play around with, and can learn more from it.
2. Cheaper, as there is no need for a 2nd set of wheels. No need to trailer the car up to the track as the S2000 can barely carry one wheel.
3. I believe the car has much more potential and with the right driving it might be able to get into the 30's with street tyres which would be quite an accomplishment for me.

This pretty much means I have no use for the RPF1 setup any more so I'll be getting rid of them. But I will sure miss this setup.


With that notion I need to go find some AD08R/RS3. The NT05 has served me extremely well but I'd like to try these tyres out first as I've heard so many great things about them.

Believe this was the fastest lap of the session, haha.

What's next hopefully is Phillip Island. The Famuse front bar won't be going on until I can chill out with the track days.


Notes for future reference.
- For the love of god confirm whether the timing is working after the first session.
- Arrive early to the track to secure a carport spot.

Sorry about the piss poor quality photo's, the Samsung S2 camera blows big time.

[DaRKNT]

Looking nice pete! CE28s look so good on S2000s! Shame to hear about the timing issues but congrats om the PB!

Did you run the space saver on the rear or the front?

[eskimo_firefighter]

Thanks Jaz! bummer about the timing indeed man. As you may know it takes a fair bit of effort to make the trek up to the track and it was a bit disheartening not to see my timing wasn't working after driving my ass off. Of course this wasn't their fault as it could have happened at any track day but how the situation was dealt just poor.

I ended up running it at the front, thought it would be safer this way. Was an interesting drive home considering the track is 200km from home with a 80kph 'limit'.

[ChargeR]

Congrats on the PB, even though it wasn't recorded. You'll definitely be dipping into the 30s with some new tyres!

[munkaii]

Fyi Pete, space savers should be used on the non driven wheel! Should say in the owners manual.

[eskimo_firefighter]

Congrats on the PB, even though it wasn't recorded. You'll definitely be dipping into the 30s with some new tyres!

Thanks Tom, I sure hope so. Not sure if I'll be back at Winton any time soon though.

Fyi Pete, space savers should be used on the non driven wheel! Should say in the owners manual.

Thanks Kev, initially I put the space saver on the rear axle but figured because it was a RWD and it might make the LSD go all crazy, I reinstalled it at the front.

[felixR]

Fyi Pete, space savers should be used on the non driven wheel! Should say in the owners manual.

That's right! The front is the non-driven wheel.

[kcl69]

Congrats on the PB Pete! Unlucky day but at least it wasn't an expensive fix!

Love the Rpf1 setup sad to see it go but those ce28

[amee-reb]

sad to hear what happened bro.. but great footage!!

[munkaii]

That's right! The front is the non-driven wheel.

Felix you need to give me some more cred!

For sure s2k is fwd 😂

[eskimo_firefighter]

Congrats on the PB Pete! Unlucky day but at least it wasn't an expensive fix!

Love the Rpf1 setup sad to see it go but those ce28

Much appreciated Kyle! But I don't consider Racechrono PB's as my official PB. Haha.

sad to hear what happened bro.. but great footage!!

Thanks mate!

[eskimo_firefighter]

Ever since I got into tracking I wanted to go to other tracks like Wakefield Park and especially Phillip Island. The Phillip Island track day was left to much later as I figured it'd be the most challenging out of all. So with all the experience I have at Winton, Wakefield and Haunted Hills (shivers*), I hoped that I have accumulated enough experience and technique to take on this monster of a track.



06/02/2015 - First Phillip Island Track day preparation.

Foolishly I left my track day preparation to the last minute as I had other things going on in my life, the car wasn't even in my mind and by last minute I mean less than 24 hours before track day. For the past two weeks or so the car was parked in the garage doing nothing with a spacesaver still on the car, with one tyre with a huge puncture. Thankfully things turned alright, I was relieved of stress and my resolve to prep for this day came back! The only thing that I needed to prepare for this track day was to repair the tyre that had a huge puncture from the last Winton day.

Now to fix the tyre problem. Even if the tyre was irrepairable, I had a spare pair of 255/40/17 AD08 laying at home, fairly worn but workable. So no matter what I was going to make this track day!



Now there's your problem. A giant nail lodged inside your tyre. My trusty wheel alignment guy advised me it will be safe to track on a repaired tyre like this, and I told him he'd better be right because getting a flat on the main straight of PI can be quite dangerous to say the least. Haha.

Big ass mofo of a nail.




07/02/2015 - Start of the Epic Phillip island weekend.

As an appetizer, I went go karting with some mates at Phillip Island. The go-kart track is basically a scaled down version of Phillip Island and the level detail was awesome down to every corner, straight and even the elevation changes was similiar to the track. So it gave me a decent idea of how the track was going to be. It was an extremely fun go-karting session between some mates, racing bumper to bumper.



Suprisingly I placed 1st for the whole day and 2nd for the whole month with a 46.880. Which I was super stoked with, massive confidence boost right there just what I needed before the real thing.




08/02/2015 - Phillip Island PIARC sprint track day.

Running the exact same setup as the last track update.

S2000 chilling at the pits.



Being a world class track the quality of the track was exceptional. This is a whole different league to what I am used to. Luckily the weather held up very well with no rain and not the temperatures were some what ideal.

1st session - Initial track impression.



First thing that comes to mind is how wide PI is compared to what I'm used to. The surface is extremly smooth and the track was wide with plenty of run off and gravel pits. Driving on it at racing speeds was such a joy, but at the same time absolutely terrifying at first!

Terrifying in the speeds I was able to reach. According to sources this track had the highest average speed in Australia and it sure as hell did feel like that, as I was going speeds over 200 km/h and some corners was 180+ easy.

Despite being such a wide track, Phillip island is extremely deceiving in a way that I thought'd I was able to drive a certain line but in doing so can result going off the track. It's quite hard to explain but turn 2 (southern loop) and turn 6 (siberia) was a bit ambigious to me. Overall the track was difficult for me, espcially when it came to choosing the racing line.
The track had a huge array of corners, from ridiculously high sweeping turns, a huge scary crest (lukey heights) turn 9, tight technical turns (turn 4 and turn 10), it was more so of a wakefield than Winton with its sweepers, but Phillip island had it all and more. It was pure bliss. I also want to add that the Voltex wing did wonders at this track.

How demanding is it?

In terms of how demanding it is for the vehicle, I'd say its the most demanding on the motor and the tyres. PI is fairly easy on the brakes with so many high speed turns it allows the brakes to cool and not much braking is required except for the tight corners which are few in this track. The speed that can be achieved at this track requires some serious rubber so I'd imagine with R compounds the laptimes won't just drop by 1-2 seconds. More like 4-5 seconds or even more!

Time attack begins!

First few sessions was used to absorb as much of the track as I can to eventually hopefully go faster. My goal of the day was to hit under 2 minutes, if achieved it I would be one happy chap.

Consistent low 2 minute laps were achieved which was satisfying in the first few sessions.

1:59.2326 was achieved in the 4th session without a clean run, I was super stoked and wanted more.

1:57.7273 was achieved in the 5th session which was unbelievable. Looking at racechrono at the time, the optimal dropped to a 56. I was now going for a 56 which was way beyond my expectations.

57.1402 and 57.1950 was achieved in the 6th session which is the video shown on the video, hindered by a mini I was certain that a 56 was doable I just needed ONE CLEAN LAP!
Last session of the day, the tyres were tired (sorry) and I was tired. Despite that I kept pushing the tits out of the car and finally a 1:56.9179 was achieved!!!! Unfortunately this was not recorded as I took a selfie of me on the track instead of recording, shattered. Haha.



From memory the 56 lap was very tail happy as I was driving too aggressively, with cleaner driving a 55 is achievable.




Here are some pictures of my S2000 on the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit.





My favourite picture of my car so far.


Honestly, this was the most enjoyable track day weekend I've been to by far and thats saying something. It has totally rejuvenated my resolve to keep smashing PB's.
With that notion I decided I'll be keeping the RPF1's and using them for Semi slicks which will hopefully allow PB's to drastically drop at Winton/Wakefield/PI.




I know I am very indecisive and tend to overanalyze my options but I believe it's always a good idea to brainstorm ideas and goals of what I want to do with the car. I'm pretty sure I want to stick with this plan going forward. A thourough check up will be done to the car to see if all bushings and all is in decent condition after how many track days the car has been through.
A long break from the track will be had as the all my consumables (tyres/pads/rotors) have probably reached their limit and I want to save some funds for later on.
Here are the lap times as shown for the day. It was so nice to have to have a properly run and timed track day. PIARC did an excellent job.

Session 1 - 2:26.0657 2:07.0644 2:11.5859 2:02.3181

Session 2 - 2:16.1067 2:01.7683 2:03.3714 2:01.4329

Session 3 - 2:30.1356 2:01.5153 2:00.6075 2:00.0508 2:11.4233

Session 4 - 2:08.5643 1:59.2326 2:14.0537 2:15.1139

Session 5 - 1:59.4472 2:02.0853 1:57.7273 2:46.4591 2:05.0872

Session 6 - 2:00.1291 1:57.6129 2:26.3309 1:59.1402 1:57.1950

Session 7 - 2:02.1521 2:07.0775 1:56.9179 1:58.6306 2:30.1715

I have no idea why but I was placed in the Closed Racing Cars up to 2500cc class. Clearly my S2000 is registered and streetable. -_-



Bonus pictures.

The end of the day with our cars. Ft Napo's S14a and Aidans S15.



Clocked 211kph going down this straight.



1:57.1950 lap on Video