Laguna Seca, with my new motor!

[xXANCHORMONXx]

Just finished my first trackday at Laguna this past weekend and it went very well. Weather was perfect and the car handled very well.

Last minute I made a set of Laguna Pipes to help pass sound.
My criteria:
- Cheap, just to see if the concept would work.
- Easy to remove.
- Dosesnt ruin the oem exhaust.
- Won't set my bumper on fire.


I bought a 90 pre bent 2.5" from my local store along with a 45. One end is flared which makes install easy. I put it on the inner tips and drilled a hole through the new pipes and the oem exhaust. I then put in a SS retaining pin through the assembly with a cotter pin on the end. I had some DEI Ti wrap hanging around so I wrapped the tips up to help with heat. Other than a total of 4 holes in the real exhaust tips which are hard to see, this is fully reversible.

I went the whole day going WOT past the sound tower and only got flagged once. That one time is when I had a passenger so perhaps the extra load made a difference. They said I blew a 95db which is not bad at all.

Thanks to "Trackaholic"s advice I put the car in track mode but set the exhaust to normal which helped a lot.

Please excuse the piss quality video. I've been struggling to overlay Harrys Laptimer onto my GoPro footage and so this is really all I have.


Here's some good footage but no overlay. The car in front of me is a Carrera S which is owned by a friend of mine. He has over 150 trackdays at Laguna and really knows his stuff, best part is that he's in his 60s!

The video shows a 1:44, on my last session however I was able to do a 1:42-1:43 after some instruction on my lines. I have a ton of seat time at Thunderhill and Buttonwillow but other than Forza I've never been to Laguna before this past Sunday.

The track is very technical and very hard on the car and driver. Once you get into the rhythm, it becomes very rewarding.

My new motor has around 700 miles on it and is very healthy. It is definitely stronger than my first motor and also has not burnt any oil.

I found the oem splitter to scrape on the cork screw and on the dip in turn 6. Anyone who tracks their car and is looking to get the "Ford Racing" springs are nuts. This track will absolutely destroy your car if its nay lower than a R.

My RE71Rs got torn up pretty good and will more than likely be replaced along with going up from 2.5 degrees camber up front to 2.75 or 3 degrees. I am looking to get Hoosier R7s in 315/35/19 and running a square setup.

My testing of the consumer version of the AP Racing GT350S kit is also going very well. Brakes are just a non issue at this point. I had the Ferodo DSUNO up front with the Ferodo DS1.11 out back. Turn after turn I had zero fade, on a few laps I broke far too late and they stayed solid throughout. I have perfect wear on all four corners with no build up.

Even swapping back and forth to the Ferodo DS2500 for the street has given me no trouble at all.

Heres a quick video over the corkscrew that my buddy took.


BMR sway bars
BMR cradle lockout
BMR LCA bearing
BMR toe links
BMR vertical links
BMR end links
Ford racing toe bearing
GT350R springs
Steeda Adjustable Camber Arm
Steeda Billet Shock Mounts
JM camber plates
SPL camber bolts
MGW shifter
AP BBK Kit
Ferodo DSUNO pads
Ferodo DS1.11 rear pads
Speigler SS brake lines
Torque RT700
Volk Racing TE37 19x10.5
Bridgestone RE71R 305/30/19
Resonator delete
Zl1 tow hooks
Amsoil air intake filter
Amsoil Oil, Trans and Diff Fluid
Ford racing catch cans
Custom Alignment

Nice picture of the whole towing setup.

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[sublime1996525]

Awesome man! I'd love to go to that track. It's definitely on my to-do list. This might sound dumb but how does the real track compare to Forza?

 

[xXANCHORMONXx]

Awesome man! I'd love to go to that track. It's definitely on my to-do list. This might sound dumb but how does the real track compare to Forza?

It's funny, I actually bought Forza 2 weeks ago just to help prepare myself.

It does help however I'd say turn 6 on the game is nothing like in real life. That was my biggest surprise.

I found that the dip in real life is really messed up, the game makes it easy lol

 

[cjgt350]

Very nice! Did you like the BMR sway bar change? I thought it could be too much with the higher spring rate of the R springs? Like to hear some real world testing feedback.

 

[db252]

Looked like a great day and looked like a good time as usual. I got warned last Sunday at Thunderhill for blowing a 105 and 106 and I'm running stock headers, cats and resonator but I have the quad tip Roush with all ports open. Had to add my block off plates to play nice.
Good to hear no issues with the new motor and the videos are always nice to watch. Looking forward to getting some track time with ya.

 

[xXANCHORMONXx]

Looked like a great day and looked like a good time as usual. I got warned last Sunday at Thunderhill for blowing a 105 and 106 and I'm running stock headers, cats and resonator but I have the quad tip Roush with all ports open. Had to add my block off plates to play nice.
Good to hear no issues with the new motor and the videos are always nice to watch. Looking forward to getting some track time with ya.

Man it's tough to get flagged at Thunderhill too. Only time I had issues was with my Evo 8 and external wastegate setup. Glad you figured it out. It was actually nice having such a quiet trackday for a change since typically everyone with a Miata or Honda puts the loudest straight pipe possible.

Looking forward to it!

 

[xXANCHORMONXx]

Very nice! Did you like the BMR sway bar change? I thought it could be too much with the higher spring rate of the R springs? Like to hear some real world testing feedback.

Not at all. The R springs needed the sways. They work in harmony so well. The car is so well balanced. It will understeer if I plow into corners but you can steer it with the back end when you hit the gas.

The R springs and BMR sways really made this car shine, in stock form the car rolled far too much.

 

[Zitrosounds]

It's funny, I actually bought Forza 2 weeks ago just to help prepare myself.

It does help however I'd say turn 6 on the game is nothing like in real life. That was my biggest surprise.

I found that the dip in real life is really messed up, the game makes it easy lol

LOL! Before hitting the Ring in Alemania I practiced on GT6. It helps quite a bit but lacks depth. The elevations and road texture feed back is zilch.

 

[Zitrosounds]

Not at all. The R springs needed the sways. They work in harmony so well. The car is so well balanced. It will understeer if I plow into corners but you can steer it with the back end when you hit the gas.

The R springs and BMR sways really made this car shine, in stock form the car rolled far too much.

Interesting! I wonder if the R has the same characteristic. Guess I'll have to wait and see.

 

[Etchhead]

Nice job on sound- always tricky especially up the hill. Can you PM more pictures of your exhaust setup? I'll need to copy that and great to know you can get by without too many aftermarket burns setups hanging off the back.

Was that event with CFRA? I recognize Larry's old school orange Porsche in your picture but knew he out that up for sale a few months back (FAST!!).

 

[PencilGeek]

I see you have resonator delete. Do you know if a stock exhaust will pass sound at Laguna Seca?

Also curious why the video with overlay was so bumpy but the others weren't. Did you mount the GoPro somewhere else on the others?

Have you thought of using something like AIM Solo-DL with CAN bus hookup for your data collecting? This would give you the ability to full full gauge rendering over your GoPro videos. It has very limited data collection on the GT350 -- and that's a huge drawback. I've been working to reverse engineer the CAN bus and made quite a bit of progress. I think I've found the CAN data for all the major gauges, even suspension and steering modes. This is most useful for people with a vBox and CAN bus hook up because I can give them a file that imports the CAN settings directly into the vBox. AIM SOLO doesn't have this ability, so you're limited to the CAN gauges they provide (which are very limited). When I finish documenting what I have for the GT350, I'll make a thread and share the results. Anybody can contact me sooner if they know how to use it.

So that's my question: do you have any CAN bus logging capabilities, and if so what are they?

 

[dkbluedevil]

What Amsoil did you put in the transmission?

 

[xXANCHORMONXx]

Interesting! I wonder if the R has the same characteristic. Guess I'll have to wait and see.

It sure does but the BMR sways take it a notch further!

 

[xXANCHORMONXx]

Nice job on sound- always tricky especially up the hill. Can you PM more pictures of your exhaust setup? I'll need to copy that and great to know you can get by without too many aftermarket burns setups hanging off the back.

Was that event with CFRA? I recognize Larry's old school orange Porsche in your picture but knew he out that up for sale a few months back (FAST!!).

Send me a pm with your email or phone and I can shoot them over.

This was with Trackmasters, Doug Gale runs it and was driving the Porsche I believe. He came up to me after the session wondering the specs because he couldn't shake me lol. Apparently he just bought it.

 

[xXANCHORMONXx]

I see you have resonator delete. Do you know if a stock exhaust will pass sound at Laguna Seca?

Also curious why the video with overlay was so bumpy but the others weren't. Did you mount the GoPro somewhere else on the others?

Have you thought of using something like AIM Solo-DL with CAN bus hookup for your data collecting? This would give you the ability to full full gauge rendering over your GoPro videos. It has very limited data collection on the GT350 -- and that's a huge drawback. I've been working to reverse engineer the CAN bus and made quite a bit of progress. I think I've found the CAN data for all the major gauges, even suspension and steering modes. This is most useful for people with a vBox and CAN bus hook up because I can give them a file that imports the CAN settings directly into the vBox. AIM SOLO doesn't have this ability, so you're limited to the CAN gauges they provide (which are very limited). When I finish documenting what I have for the GT350, I'll make a thread and share the results. Anybody can contact me sooner if they know how to use it.

So that's my question: do you have any CAN bus logging capabilities, and if so what are they?

Nope the oem standard exhaust will blow sound as well.

So the video with the overlay is from my iPhone and the Standard video is from my GoPro. Apparently the iPhone 5 and up just do not record track videos very well.

I haven't looked into any logging capabilities to be honest. I can say that I would pay good money for a device that records video, data logs and overlays all in one. It's been frustrating trying to make this work properly.

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