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Uncle Keltiks Track Preperation


Jesus

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So for all the fine chaps out there who have signed up for the September track day, i thought i\'d share some wisdom. I\'ve already seen Tonys guide and its very good. You should go and read that if you want to be serious and learn things. However, if you want a frank and simple explanation of what I\'m going to do and why....read on. Please note that this guide is really aimed towards the average bloke in an average car which is averagely driven on the average day to your average job. If you have a roll cage or a dedicated track car - you have more money than me so should probably go and read something a bit better than this.

Step 1: Make sure you\'re all legal

Check overalls are 100% cotton. Check your helmet is actually rated to stop your brain spilling out. Scrutineers will be checking this so dont try and bullshit your way through it. Bring some electrical tape to seal up the cuffs if they are loose. Some marshalls/scrutineers perfer you to do that and its better to look dorky than need skin grafts.

After that, make sure your battery is tied down super hardcore tight. Wof standard requires it to be safe and not able to fall into the engine, track day standard requires it to be locked in place to the degree that it aint goin\' nowhere.

Everything else the scrutineers will check is common sense. If you dont have enough of that to know a zip-tied on exhaust is a bad idea, please stay away from me on the track.

Step 2: Make sure your car will stop

Going isnt really a problem on the track. No matter how much going your car has in it, you will usually run out of stopping first. I guarantee that for every minute you waste on trying to get more power, you will have far less fun than if you spent that time on the brakes.

* Throw away all of your brake fluid a couple days before the event. Put in all fresh new stuff. RBF550 or RBF600 is good. I dont care what brand you use but i like the Motul and so do a lot of people who are much smarter than me. I dont like it because it was on fast and the furious, I like it because ive set my brakes on fire, burned the paint off my mags and popped tires from the heat of the front rotors and STILL had a car i can drive home afterwards.

* For pads, if you want to have a fun day - go and buy some Ferodo TS2000\'s for the front. Nobody cares what you put in the back and neither should you. The Ferodo pad has been exceptionally good for me (order over the phone from racebrakes for the best pricing). Bendix ultimates will also perform well but not on a slotted rotor - they get all smushy when hot.

* For bedding in brakes, dont go mad. I normally just put the pads in the day before i go to the track. No rotor machining or other bollocks, just slam them in and drive with them for a day to square everything up. After the first 2 or 3 decent stops on the track everything will come right. Your not at a race meet, you dont need them to perform at 100% right away.

* For rotors. Yes slotted ones really do work better. The nice chaps at Znoelli will sell you some direct for a better price than you can buy them from Repco. They are very good rotors and the 2 sets of S12\'s ive been through were bloody excellent. You dont need them tho. Go to BNT and put on some of their generic flat ones if you need to replace them....if you dont - save the money for hookers and blow. Slots will chew through brake pads, make lots of dust, make noise on the road and vibrate the brake pedal which can be a bit tough to ignore driving to work.

* USE THE BLOODY THINGS! Honestly, the number of times ive been following a WRX with Brembos and seen their brake lights come on while im still at full throttle..... Dont be afraid to literally stand on the brake pedal at 200kph. Assuming you havnt fucked with your brake bias too much - it will stop nice and controlled without destroying the universe. My car weighs 1700kg on chinese tires so i should NOT be braking later than you in your Impreza.

Step 3: Make sure all of the going your car has can get to the road

TIRES! Or is it Tyres? Anyways, youll need them. If you want to be a dick like me, you\'ll knock an easy 4mm of tread off all of them in one track day. If you take it easy - you can get away with maybe 1-2mm. I dont care what brand you buy, I just run the cheapest tires i can which are reputable, quiet and safe. At the moment i have a full set of Goodrides on there and they will do just fine. Your not out to set the world on fire and challenge Schumacher, so do yourself a favor and destroy some shitty chinese rubber on the track instead of wasting $800 worth of Yokohamas on a one day pointless exercise.

* For tire pressures, on the common lower profiles, id say about 34-36 cold works well for me. Maybe a smidge less if you have some decent camber dialed in. The higher pressure helps stop the sidewalls rolling over but you will need to keep an eye on it with your gauge to stop things getting too high. I once came in from a decent 10 laps and found one tire to be at 60psi....the valve stem of the next one i checked exploded as i touched it.

Step 4: The engine / roaring devil box

Big end bearings? Im not going to say anything on that. I plan on raping the utter snot out of my motor all day and im pretty sure it will be just fine with that. But I\'m still going to make sure theres plenty of oil in it. Good quality oil too! Always a genuine Subaru oil filter. Please also make sure the oil stays inside your engine. I dont want to end up in the armco because someone thought a leaky rocker cover gasket didnt matter. Also remember that any oil leaks will be flying around very close to super hot turbos and exhausts. Its not hard for that combination to make an impromptu barbeque.

Step 5: Weight reduction

Lotus knows its the way to go. I remove the following from my BH for the usual track day. It livens up the rear end and helps make me less of a fatty. It also makes all the engine sounds much louder which is fun! Takes about half an hour to get it all out and about the same to put it all back in.

Rear seat backs and base

Spare wheel, tool kits, undertray and cargo floor panels

carpet mats and everything from the glove box, center console and boot pockets.

Sub woofer in its box.

Step 6: Stop wanking on about it

Take some photos, have a great time, talk to people....but dont bang on about your exploits for the rest of the weekend. Im guilty of having done this and i think everyone has at some point...but modesty is honestly a godsend on the track. If you made a REAALLY impressive passing maneuver and managed to shame someone - yeah you deserve a bit of talk time....but dont spend the next 4 hours telling me how you wouldve been quicker if youd run high boost or changed your tire pressures. Its not a race. Its a day of dicking about. Results are not official and that guy you think you just convincingly beat might not have even realised you were challenging him to a deathrace.

As a final note, I know exactly where my temperature gauge should sit. I know what my car should sound like and really this is the most important thing. The better you know your vehicle - the quicker you will be alerted to things going wrong. An unusual tick or knock noticed early may save your engine or your life. The people with the biggest problems on track days are always the people with the most modified cars.

The poster child for track day fun for me is Joker. With a hundredth the budget of most people, he has ten times as much fun. This is purely because its not how fast you go, its how you go fast. Being able to stay out all day and have fun is far more important than being the fastest person. At the last track day i attended, these chaps were out all day, used bugger all fuel and had a sore face from all the grins.

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In closing, I hope this article will help you a bit. If i havnt mentioned it here, i genuinely wont be doing it to my car. No last minute oil changes, no extra modifications, no overfilling my sump by half a liter. Just a daily driver out to have some fun.

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Choice write up Keltik

The only thing I\'d add from my experience in running motosoc trackdays at Ruapuna is, if someone is in your mirrors, throw your ego out the window and let them past! If I had a dollar for every time I\'ve seen someone in a high horsepower car holding up a que of cars around the infield, only to blow them off down the main straight and have them catch up again at the second corner, I\'d be a rich man

Bit of a story about being modest:

We had a guy at one of our days tell his passenger "watch out, I drive like Ken Block". He crashed into a light post in pit lane. On his way out to the indian file lap. His VR4 Legnum was almost a write off and he didn\'t even make it onto the track

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Also I\'d like to add the following note;

If you think you shouldnt take your car on the track, you are wrong!

The track is smoother than the road, there are big run-off areas and there is no law saying you have to do a million kph everywhere.

On these small low key track days, its all about learning the limits of your own car in your own time. So dont be intimidated. As i mentioned earlier, usually the people who have the most fun on track days are not in super special track cars. They are in standard daily drivers.

The fun comes from learning about your own cars shortfalls and characteristics. It really doesnt matter if you\'re in a TSR or a STI, both will teach you how to drive. So no matter what you\'ve got, dont be afraid to get out there and see what it will do.

If a diesel Corona wagon can do it, so can you. No excuses.

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Excellent write up and well said, don\'t need flash stuff to put a grin on the face, have track the standard twin turbo auto legacy family sedan a couple of times, only making sure stuff works and keeping within the general service of 5000ks, and really really cheap tyres on the car, wife even done a few laps and had a smile for days. And the car lived every time.

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  • 5 months later...
 Flat4 said:

Step 7: Check wheel nuts are tight before, during AND AFTER a trackday

After snapping a wheel stud the other week I know I will be next time

Use a tourque wrench too if you can, I\'ve seen a guy snap all the studs off a wheel on his honda cause he used his new impact gun to do the nuts up, way too tight and he sheared the studs off on the warm up lap!

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  • 6 months later...

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