starting out for track days and HPDE

[mrfatride]

Good morning! I currently have a 2013 Mustang GT PP car and in the spring I plan on attending my first track day. Car is completely bone stock currently and while I would love to be able to buy everything i need to make work its best on the track but just is not feasable at this point in time. Given this information what would you say is an ABSOLUTE MUST have mods to make my first experience a good one? Most of the sessions out here are 20 min stints and I realize I wont be going 80-100% the entire time. Here is what I would think would need to be done at a minimum....

-Better brake fluid
-Track pads

Car currently has some Goodyear F1 Asymmetrical all seasons on the stock brembo wheels. I would most likely pick up a set of 05-07 GT500 wheels and put a set of good tires on them (thinking RS3)

Any other input would be great! Thanks again!!

 

[stkjock]

Maybe some of these similar threads will help - please always search first

http://s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22442&highlight=time+HPDE

http://s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107816&highlight=time+HPDE

http://s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=87740&highlight=time+HPDE

http://s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=119508&highlight=time+HPDE

http://s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111683&highlight=time+HPDE

 

[mrfatride]

thank you. I should have known better and searched.

 

[Speedboosted]

Pads and fluids are always a good start. Do you have a comfortable helmet already? I would run those all season for your very first time, then get a dedicated set of wheels/tires once you know it's something you want to continue doing.

 

[Norm Peterson]

This ↑↑↑ . You want to have complete faith in your brakes' ability to get you slowed for the turns and/or other traffic - or stopped if necessary.

In the beginning, run the car that you know, and make sure that it is in good mechanical condition. Know that the biggest initial improvement comes from the "driver mod". Tires, wheels, and everything else can wait.

You should either be running laps in a lead-follow arrangement behind a pace car or at a somewhat reduced pace with an instructor sitting right seat. The pace may end up being fairly brisk, but shouldn't be above what your current tires and wheels can support (and might get 'adjusted' by the instructor or lead car driver if it looks like it is).


Don't overlook the track day items not related to the car directly. Administrative details and event scheduling, supplies for yourself during the day, etc.


Norm

 

[mrfatride]

Good info. Thanks! I do have a helmet for when I go auto x from time to time. I have yet been able to auto x this car though. Mechanically its good to go. I read a lot of those threads mentioned and picked up some pretty good mental prep info along with a good list of things to bring.

 

[Norm Peterson]

Your helmet will need to be an 'SA' helmet. Autocross helmet requirements are somewhat looser as an acknowledgement of the lower speeds and lower likelihood of multiple head-hard object contacts and generally allow 'M' helmets. Check the year as well and compare it to what your track(s) require, as older helmet year specs are eventually disallowed.


Norm

 

[csamsh]

Good advice from Norm, and good initial list. The only thing I would add to pads/fluid/wheels/tires/helmet is camber plates- they'll go a long way towards preserving your front tires once you start going faster in corners.

Once you get a handle on that setup, you can start down the deep dark hole that is making these things fast.

 

[mrfatride]

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/gfr-3021lrgwh

This is the helmet I currently have. The scca region I run in is pretty picky on helmets. I would imagine this one is up to snuff.

My buddy has a set of 05-07 GT500 wheels he will just give me. They need some work (powedercoated) and one of the things I read in some of those links is to start out with a cheaper tire as being a n00b to the whole track thing its a given that I will tear up a set of tires most likely. Thoughts on that? I will look into camber plates as well seeing i will need them once i go with a better strut/spring combo anyways.

 

[TGR96]

I have only been doing track days a couple of years, but I agree with what Norm said about the driver mod. My car was already modded before I started tracking it, so I haven't really done much to it. It is still a lot faster than I am! LOL

Just remember to turn off the nannies before you go out. Otherwise, the traction control will kick in and your rear end may end up overheating and it will cause your axle seals to fail, spitting rear end gear oil all over the place. I learned this the hard way.

 

[Boaisy]

I have only been doing track days a couple of years, but I agree with what Norm said about the driver mod. My car was already modded before I started tracking it, so I haven't really done much to it. It is still a lot faster than I am! LOL

Just remember to turn off the nannies before you go out. Otherwise, the traction control will kick in and your rear end may end up overheating and it will cause your axle seals to fail, spitting rear end gear oil all over the place. I learned this the hard way.

Not to mention reduces the rear brake pad wear.

 

[2Fass240us]

My buddy has a set of 05-07 GT500 wheels he will just give me. They need some work (powedercoated) and one of the things I read in some of those links is to start out with a cheaper tire as being a n00b to the whole track thing its a given that I will tear up a set of tires most likely. Thoughts on that?

I think that's a reasonable approach as long as "cheap" still yields "reasonably grippy." You don't want to go ice-skating with all those torks on tap. Just make sure you stay with street tires for awhile...moving too quickly to r-comps is a great way to go farming.

I started out with Continental ExtremeContact DW in a 295/35-18 and stuck with those for a loooong time. Only issue was wear but that was because I didn't have camber plates.

 

[mrfatride]

I think that's a reasonable approach as long as "cheap" still yields "reasonably grippy." You don't want to go ice-skating with all those torks on tap. Just make sure you stay with street tires for awhile...moving too quickly to r-comps is a great way to go farming.

I started out with Continental ExtremeContact DW in a 295/35-18 and stuck with those for a loooong time. Only issue was wear but that was because I didn't have camber plates.

Yeah R-comps would for sure be a long way away especially for the cost lol. I would still go with a summer tire most likely in the 200-300TW rating. My guess would be like a HTR Z3 or NT555 or a Goodyear F1 Supercar tire (the 150ish a tire range for a 275-285 tire) as the wheels are only 9.5" wide

 

[noldevin]

I was told by several track instructors to leave stability control ON while just starting, and wait to turn it off until you are confident or it starts interfering. It may just save you if you panic or mess up while learning.
I'm inclined to follow what they say... rear brakes are cheaper than bodywork
I put it in sport mode for now.

 

[kcbrown]

I was told by several track instructors to leave stability control ON while just starting, and wait to turn it off until you are confident or it starts interfering. It may just save you if you panic or mess up while learning.
I'm inclined to follow what they say... rear brakes are cheaper than bodywork
I put it in sport mode for now.

You shouldn't assume that the TC is going to save you. You should approach learning the car the same way you would as if it didn't have TC. The difference is that with TC enabled, if you do something that would otherwise cause you to lose control of the car, the TC might be able to save you (and you'd hopefully learn something in the process), while you'd be toast if it weren't enabled.

You can actually use the TC as a learning tool. At least in my car, you can hear when the TC kicks in. When it kicks in, it means it's preventing the car from rotating more than some programmed threshold. If you hear it or feel it kick in, it means you did something that would have sent the car over the edge. So you learn to drive the car such that the TC would be about to kick in, but never quite does.

There are car control exercises you can, and should, do to learn how to drive the car when the rear comes out. Any venue where there's basically nothing to hit and nothing that would damage the car is appropriate. Autocross test'n'tune sessions, HOD's "car control clinic", Evolution driving school, etc., are all examples of that. In those, you'd obviously want to turn the traction control off because you'd intentionally be making the rear come out more than the TC is likely to allow.

Once you've got the car control figured out, you can turn off the TC. But at that point, you will be on your own, so if you're used to the TC intervening, then you should drop your speed back a bit and slowly approach the limits again. If you're used to driving the car with TC on, you could think about the car with TC off as a brand new car, and approach it that way.

If you're disciplined enough, you could turn off the TC from the start and slowly approach the limits of the car, as well as doing the car control exercises I mentioned earlier. It's how you'd safely learn a car that didn't have TC at all.


The car control exercises are great fun.

 

[noldevin]

You shouldn't assume that the TC is going to save you. You should approach learning the car the same way you would as if it didn't have TC. The difference is that with TC enabled, if you do something that would otherwise cause you to lose control of the car, the TC might be able to save you (and you'd hopefully learn something in the process), while you'd be toast if it weren't enabled.

You can actually use the TC as a learning tool. At least in my car, you can hear when the TC kicks in. When it kicks in, it means it's preventing the car from rotating more than some programmed threshold. If you hear it or feel it kick in, it means you did something that would have sent the car over the edge. So you learn to drive the car such that the TC would be about to kick in, but never quite does.

There are car control exercises you can, and should, do to learn how to drive the car when the rear comes out. Any venue where there's basically nothing to hit and nothing that would damage the car is appropriate. Autocross test'n'tune sessions, HOD's "car control clinic", Evolution driving school, etc., are all examples of that. In those, you'd obviously want to turn the traction control off because you'd intentionally be making the rear come out more than the TC is likely to allow.

Once you've got the car control figured out, you can turn off the TC. But at that point, you will be on your own, so if you're used to the TC intervening, then you should drop your speed back a bit and slowly approach the limits again. If you're used to driving the car with TC on, you could think about the car with TC off as a brand new car, and approach it that way.

If you're disciplined enough, you could turn off the TC from the start and slowly approach the limits of the car, as well as doing the car control exercises I mentioned earlier. It's how you'd safely learn a car that didn't have TC at all.


The car control exercises are great fun.

You make a lot of good points. I guess the assumption at my track days was that people would be overzealous and less attentive to learning car control. In that case leaving it on to save yourself makes the most sense.

I'll have to be more attentive and try some of your ideas

 

[Norm Peterson]

I was told by several track instructors to leave stability control ON while just starting, and wait to turn it off until you are confident or it starts interfering. It may just save you if you panic or mess up while learning.
I'm inclined to follow what they say... rear brakes are cheaper than bodywork
I put it in sport mode for now.

I can understand the position of an instructor sitting right-seat for a student (whose driving skills are not known) being exactly that . . . and particularly these days where the likelihood of said student having much useful experience in pre-nanny cars is decreasing with each passing year. Of course, the instructor is going to want to have a good feeling about each student before letting them relax the safety nets a bit and drive off in what may well be for the student 'uncharted territory'. Basically, it may have been a little easier for me to get signed of to solo at age 65 or so in a car with TC only than it was/will be for you at 25 in a car that also has ESC.

I'm not at all sure what happens once the rear brakes go metal on metal, though I do know that I don't want to personally find out.

Since you list yourself as located in NJ, NJMP has one more track day of their own this year, coming up on Dec 12. In-car instruction doesn't appear to be scheduled, but there will be 2 or 3 levels of "progressive paced laps" that do work up to pretty decent speeds if you aren't quite ready to drive solo (ideally, signed off to solo by some entity), and there's a run group of mixed "advanced & instructor" folks if you are. Running Thunderbolt, if that matters. Registration is through motorsportreg.com.


KC - my understanding is that stability control (ESC, aka AdvanceTrak, Stabilitrak, etc.) is a separate nanny from TC even though both ESC and TC are piggybacked on the ABS system. TC won't inherently fix unplanned "yaw", though it may make such situations somewhat less likely to occur in the first place (if it catches the wheelspin quickly enough, which is not guaranteed). It's ESC kicking in that really tells you that you've just stepped over the edge [of what it permits].


Norm

 

[kcbrown]

KC - my understanding is that stability control (ESC, aka AdvanceTrak, Stabilitrak, etc.) is a separate nanny from TC even though both ESC and TC are piggybacked on the ABS system. TC won't inherently fix unplanned "yaw", though it may make such situations somewhat less likely to occur in the first place (if it catches the wheelspin quickly enough, which is not guaranteed). It's ESC kicking in that really tells you that you've just stepped over the edge [of what it permits].

Yeah, I wasn't being specific enough. I lump all of the various stability and traction control systems into a generic "traction control" term, for the convenience of talking about the whole thing.

Turning off AdvanceTrac also has the effect of turning off "traction control".

To be honest, in terms of the hardware and programming, both ESC and TC may well be mere parts of the same system these days. If I were a manufacturer, that's how I'd do it -- make it a single integrated system. I wouldn't be surprised if they were actually separate systems, with separate controllers and everything, at one point in time, but I wouldn't expect that to be the case anymore. If the systems really are integrated to that degree, it may be more "accurate" to refer to the whole thing by one term, and "traction control" seems as good a term as any for that, since maintaining traction automatically results in yaw minimization. The main downside to using that term is that the historical "traction control" (wheelspin control) is something that can be turned off while leaving ESC active.

 

[Norm Peterson]

I agree that integrating the two systems makes sense, as long as the two can work more or less independently of each another. There are times when you may need TC to be off but wish to retain the stability assist (getting unstuck from in the snow comes to mind).

ESC (or the mfr's own system name) would be better, as ESC uses yaw sensor data to directly intervene when unplanned/unexpected/"excessive" yaw is in progress. TC does not need a yaw sensor or its data and can only act indirectly. My '08 has TC only . . .


Norm

 

[2Fass240us]

I can understand the position of an instructor sitting right-seat for a student (whose driving skills are not known) being exactly that . . . and particularly these days where the likelihood of said student having much useful experience in pre-nanny cars is decreasing with each passing year. Of course, the instructor is going to want to have a good feeling about each student before letting them relax the safety nets a bit and drive off in what may well be for the student 'uncharted territory'.

This. I would far prefer the student understand why the car engaged nannies before completely disengaging them. As KC mentions, it can be a valuable learning tool, especially in the wet.

Speaking of wet, a wet skidpad is another great learning tool for yaw control.