Ok, back from the 2 days at Gingerman with 3 Balls.
Here's my best session from today at Gingerman Raceway. Skip to 11:00 for the good laps. 1:41.04 was my best, which is damn impressive for showroom stock on street tires.
*copy and paste from the video thread*
In the 13 years I've been tracking at Gingerman I've never heard anyone say it's easy on brakes. The pads are perfectly fine, the tires don't have enough grip for the pads and the ABS calibration is frankly rather poor. If you apply the brake too quickly the ABS goes into a kind of "coast down mode" and braking distance goes frustratingly long. You have to lift and reapply to get out of the "coast down mode".
The car rotates best by rolling back on the throttle early. It refuses to lift oversteer unless the rear tires are cold. Speaking of tires, the staggered setup seems stupid. The fronts heat up quicker than the rears, and then once the rears come in you only have a couple laps before the fronts get greasy. The entire session is dominated by tire temp management rather than complimenting the suspension.
Overall the car is easy to acclimate to and its behavior is benevolent.
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I think overall, the car is excellent for being bone stock. There are a few niggles that I find quirky:
*The throttle response in Track mode, which you need to be in to access PTM, is very digital. Like Randy Pobst said, it's "too severe". There isn't enough medium-torque resolution, it goes from not enough torque to WOT within a couple degrees of pedal angle, which is inappropriate for a Track mode. Frankly how the Camaro team would let this calibration get into production seems like a basic oversight. As I exit corners, I want a smooth torque response, not a chest-thumping battle axe Hulk-smash.
*I was struggling with the brakes all weekend, but not for the reasons glamcem would prefer.
First, the ABS calibration is clearly not designed for being used on-track. If ABS is actuated, the overall clamping force goes way down and the car feels like it's coasting down instead of fully braking. Obviously this is a problem. There does seem to be a narrow window of pedal actuation where I was able to threshold brake before ABS kicking in, but it's a pretty narrow window. I ended up giving myself room for "coast down mode" instead of throwing out the anchor like I'm used to in other cars. It seems part of the problem is the front tires just don't have enough mechanical grip for braking. The ABS problem isn't as severe as "ice mode" in the Elise/Exige, but in those cars you can simply disconnect the ABS and go about knocking out hot laps because the brakes are fundamentally communicative. The only big plus I have to give the Camaro brakes are the EBD and CBC are very good. Transitioning from a left-hand sweeper directly into a braking zone, and starting braking while coming out of the sweeper was a non-event. In lesser calibration CBC's (or nothing at all) you'll get single or multiple tire lock-ups instead of even braking. So thumbs up to that.
*2. The second problem with the brakes is all 8 bleeder valves keep leaking. Now, I've owned pretty much all the brakes over the years, barring carbon-ceramics. Wilwood still wins for having the least leaky race-style bleeders (yes the tiny 1/4" ones), AP's are kind of good, but these 1LE Brembo's need an absolute crap-ton of torque to simply minimize the weeping. I was literally using a 3/8" ratchet and deep-well socket and giving a good heave to the bleeders. Every heat cycle they'd need another 1/8 to 1/4 turn to get tight again. Looking at my PDR video, I'm not adding any notable more pedal pressure than others, so either my bleeders are crap or nobody else is reporting the bleeders suck.
*The oil temps. My recorded peak oil temp was 270F, which is hot. The rest of the cars' temps are fine. Coolant peaked at 214F. Trans temp is a non-issue at a 189F peak. This was in 82F ambient.
*Fuel economy. She's thirsty! 5.5 MPG on-track, yikes! Of course the on-board computer is optimistic by about 10%, that offset seems fairly consistent for street driving so far too.
Things I love: The PDR, the PTM, and the Recaro's actually hold me in! I lightly brace my knees on the center console and door panel, right about where the "knee pads" are, and it's all good. The benevolence of the suspension tuning is really impressive, it really only took one session to wrap my head around how the car works, it's just so easy.
Low hanging fruit: Tires. The car feels ready for a square set of 295 Hoosier R7's straight out of the box. More grip would match the Power Stop Track Day pads better, and also mask the ABS issues. I'm not super comfortable with the high oil temps; I may add a small Setrab to increase oil viscosity and film-strength headroom. After that, the suede knee pads should feel better than the hard plastic ones. Wow that's it. Yea the car is really capable and sorted right off the showroom floor.