Track day report.

[rs4steve]

Question: Can a B5 S4 make a reasonably fun, not so slow it gets in the way of the Westfield/Caterham/Lotus/Porsche GT3 owners, track type car?
I went to Rockingham Speedway to find out. I booked the day with www.bookatrack.co.uk and couldn’t fault them in any way.


The standard seats are awful for track work.
The standard radiator, even with the oil to water heat exchanger removed and the aid of an additional 25 row oil cooler, couldn’t cope. Temps got up to 110 / 115 degrees water temp and I had to put in a few slow laps to cool down now and again.

had to upgrade my radiator i was getting issues with high water temps i invested in a 60mm thick rad from "a h fabrications" of hereford temps are now down to 83-84'c on track

[DavidT]

Glad you enjoyed it spen, you can never have that much fun on the road can you ?

Trackdays have always been a big part of RS246 & I think we will do one with Palmersport later in the year.

[Ads4]

Sounds good David

[Doug_S2]

What tyres did you run spencer? And how was the balance of the car with the rear arb adapters?

Time for a seperate gearbox cooler so you can use a larger main radiator - that is what we do on the big power cars.

[spen]

Excellent David, if the dates line up with work, ie I'm in the country, I'll be first in the queue. Any favourite tracks?

And no, you can't get close to the fun on the road. Sure you can have one or two blasts, but nothing sustained like on a track day.

rs4steve, sounds like a good idea. I was going to lose the gearbox heat exchanger like Brett has but I ran out of time.

Doug, Eagle dsg3 225 tyres at 34 psi warm on 18" rims. They survived the day even though I was really gooning for the first ten laps. Every time I hit second gear it was 45 degrees out of shape!

Overall the balance was enjoyable - the turn in lacked a bit of feel and I couldn't match the westfields for entry speed in to corners but I could balance it wonderfully with some throttle.

I doubt I'm the most capable driver in the world but it was totally controllable even with 500 bhp. It was turn in towards the apex cone, back slides round, give it some power to straighten it up then it just flew down the straights.

I have a question about the front ARB. As anyone asked you to make up a bracket to lengthen the arm of the front ARB to make it softer? Has anyone ever asked you to weld in adjustable top mounts for the front struts so we can build in a couple of degrees of camber?

I'll be in touch about the radiator!

[Doug_S2]

i find turn in feel depends a lot on how stiff the sidewalls are on tyres - that is why i like the lower profile tyres.

You could try the stock arb on the front to see what balance is like.

you can get adjustable top arms to play with camber. You can also go for serious camber on the outer mounting points for lower arms but you need modified driveshafts

[spen]

yeah, I pumped the tyres up a bit but I couldn't tell the difference! I guess I'm too hamfisted

I'm not unhappy with the current softest on the front and the 3rd hole on the rear H&R bars. It was fun, safe, controllable, maybe not the ultimate but it is a good compromise set up, it is capable of track days and also being driven for 8 hours on the M1 (thursday). I just wondered if anyone else had done something different. I might start a suspension thread but first I'm going to use the search feature.

[spen]

Spen - let me know when you are next out for a track day. Love to go out with a fellow novice. Those who tend to track day on here seem to be quite experienced - would feel a little spare.

I'm off to Donnington park on 2nd June. Afternoon / Evening event for £125.

Anyone else up for it?

http://bookatrack.com/-pB?824

[clubsport]

Nice vids,,,..I agree on the tyres,, the car has the power, but I would say that the brakes let you down...you were braking way too early...obviously this is again tied in with the tyres....

I would expect you will have more fun at Donnington though, one of the best tracks in the Uk

Despite many years of trackdays I have only driven Rockingham once, that was last month driving a 964 RS CS and 997 Gt3 (neither are mine!) for the Car magazine videos with Derek Bell.....on the basis of that it's not a track I am in a rush to get back to and I am sure an S4 would be a real struggle (slow) round the tighter sections off of the bowl.

Have fun on track...don't under estimate the importance of decent instruction along the way to upgrading the car!

[spen]

Sure the car is nose heavy, and heavy in general. Not sure it's all down to tyres and brakes though, I was watching the cones and using them (or trying to, sometimes it just wouldn't turn in on the infield section, sometimes I just fluffed it).

I think your last, very tactful, comment should be highlighted. This may have as much if not more to do with it! Some of those braking events were survival instinct sourced, not decisions I took

I watched all the video afterwards and decided I do not use the width of the track and I was too rough with the gas pedal. This created loads of wheelspin and smoke, which was amusing, but not fast!. I think I also treated each corner as an event, not part of a sequence. I think I will take an instructor lesson at Donnington to assist the learning process...

I'll try a few different camera settings and I'll tie the lens cap up this time.

[clubsport]

I would reccomend instruction at donny,,I first went there 10 years ago in a previous 911.....the instructor soon pushed me to take craner curves flat in 4th, which was a revelation...I could have been there all day on my own before I would have the confidence to work up to doing that!