[R3ctivision]

On Sunday, I took my SS 1LE to Laguna Seca for its first time there. I ran it bone stock with brand new front OE brake pads, DOT4 Motul RBF600, and Moreno Motorsports camber plates.

I originally decided to get the plates to allow me to quickly swap between street and track settings. My plan was to set -1.4deg of camber at the knuckle for street use with near-zero toe -- and zero out the plates. Then, when arriving at the track, I would set them to -3.4deg (about 2 deg of adjustability at the plate), and the toe out would increase a bit.

Well, I was surprised to find this isn't a viable strategy. According to my race shop, moving the plates about 2deg swung the toe by 0.4deg PER SIDE (which is astronomical). At best, I could probably adjust camber by 0.1deg at the plates per side without totally screwing up the toe setting to be unusable.

So I decided to do a static alignment and just minimize my street driving during the track season. Besides, high toe settings wear tires a lot faster than high camber settings with low toe settings, so I figured the following was better than the dynamically-adjustable idea.

7.75deg caster front
-3.4deg camber front (-1.4deg at knuckle, dialed in -2deg at plate)
-1.7 deg camber rear (maxed out stock)
-0.04deg toe front per side (out)
0.08deg toe rear per side (in)

The car performed beautifully at Laguna with these settings. I had taken the car to Sonoma twice and Auto Club Speedway's roval once, and the car tended towards mild understeer (at the time, was using max knuckle camber of -2.6deg per side with no plates installed). With the extra -0.8deg of camber, the car was very eager to turn in, and required extra-smooth inputs.

The car was extremely balanced and grippy for the first 3-4 laps per session, then the tires started to get too hot and greasy. I set up the car to get hot pressure around 31-32psi -- anything higher and it loses a lot of grip. When the tires are cooler, the car was very neutral and felt fast. After those 3-4 laps, it tended a bit towards mild understeer, but not nearly as much as before the new camber setting.

I also found that the stock brake pads can work at Laguna on stock tires and with DOT4 brake fluid. The first 20 minute session on new pads was very sketchy, so I took my time to bed them in on track carefully. My strategy was to do a reasonable warm up lap followed by a hot lap. At that point, the pads faded notably and smoked. I did a cool down lap 3, a pretty-hot lap 4, cool down lap 5, etc. until the end of the session. After that, the pads had turned nicely white where they contact the rotors (which they should when burnished properly), and the rotors got a blue glaze (also working as intended).
For the rest of the day, after the burnishing, the stock pads did excellently for up to 4 hot laps at a time before starting to fade. I didn't get any caliper color shift, so the heat wasn't too excessive (a problem I've had on every street car with race pads).

For reference, I did about 1:42-1:43 laps on a 90dB day (which means lifting and coasting from the exit of turn 5 all the way to turn 6). I did blow sound once when I forgot to lift... 95.8dB when at full throttle near the top of third gear. I think I could probably do a 1:40.5 time with unlimited sound and no other changes to my driving or the car setup.

All in all, I'm really pleased with the capabilities of this car out of the box! The camber plates just give the car that extra edge and make it easier to set it up for nicely neutral handling. Now that I know the car's brakes can handle Laguna when driven reasonably (and given periodic chances to cool), I feel a lot more confident. Still planning to get a set of Apex wheels and dedicated tires when Camaro fitments are available later this year, and perhaps upgrade the brake pads then, but I'll probably need to install some extra brake ducts then as well.

Hope this review helps others that are considering the Moreno plates or whether they need to upgrade the car.

EDIT: The plates are the redesigned version -- I ordered them back in December -- and they held up just fine! The DIY install wasn't as bad as I feared, either, although I did have the help of a friend who is more experienced.
EDIT 2: Tire wear was predominantly on the outside for the rear tires at -1.7deg. They need at least -2deg of camber, honestly. In the front, tire wear was pretty balanced at -3.4deg.

[seanblurr]

Sounds like you had a good day out there, that track is a blast.

Not to derail the thread too much, but have you taken tire temps at all? I was finding different results when playing with camber and temps on my 1LE when I had it.

[R3ctivision]

I did do temps previously, but forgot to bring my tool on Sunday :(

Using the previous camber setup at Sonoma, I think I had slightly hotter temps on the tire outer edges.

[Badgerbimmer]

Great report. That answers my questions about the Moreno's for easily adjustable track/street. Now I don't need to mess around with it on the alignment rack.

What tires come stock on the SS 1LE? I guess the question is are they different tires than the ZL1 as everyone seems to report that the Supercar Fs on the ZL1 hold up for a whole session.

[Trackpack]

Out of curiosity, will the car set in Stealth mode pass Laguna sound limits? I think some cars with dual mode exhaust like the Evora are intentionally set up that way. I can't think there would be a noticeable power change.

[Van B]

Originally Posted by Badgerbimmer

Great report. That answers my questions about the Moreno's for easily adjustable track/street. Now I don't need to mess around with it on the alignment rack.

What tires come stock on the SS 1LE? I guess the question is are they different tires than the ZL1 as everyone seems to report that the Supercar Fs on the ZL1 hold up for a whole session.

Eagle F1 Supercar 3. Tires held up nicely during my sessions in October at the Road America Optima event.

[R3ctivision]

Originally Posted by Badgerbimmer

Great report. That answers my questions about the Moreno's for easily adjustable track/street. Now I don't need to mess around with it on the alignment rack.

What tires come stock on the SS 1LE? I guess the question is are they different tires than the ZL1 as everyone seems to report that the Supercar Fs on the ZL1 hold up for a whole session.

Tires on ZL1 are exactly the same as those on the SS 1LE. They are:

Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperCar3
285/30/20 front
305/30/20 rear

They run about $1200 for a set on TireRack. The ZL1 1LE runs the wider Supercar 3R in 19", also about the same price, but not available in SS 1LE/ZL1 OEM sizes.

[R3ctivision]

Originally Posted by Trackpack

Out of curiosity, will the car set in Stealth mode pass Laguna sound limits? I think some cars with dual mode exhaust like the Evora are intentionally set up that way. I can't think there would be a noticeable power change.

The owner's manual states not to use stealth mode on the track, or the exhaust can be damaged. I guess you could try Tour or Sport, but if you're anywhere near full throttle the valves will open anyway, so it doesn't get you much. Your best bet is to lift, or go on a 105 dB day.

[R3ctivision]

For anyone interested, here are the pics of my tires at the end of the day. These tires are the originals after 1 year:
- 2 track days at Sonoma
- 1 track day at Auto Club Speedway (brutal on right-hand-side tires!!)
- 1 track day at Laguna
- 7000 street miles

The front left and front right were swapped before the track day, that's why the wear pattern is diagonal with respect to the rears. Before I swapped the fronts, the right hand side was much more worn than the left. That's mostly thanks to Auto Club's Roval =)

New OE tires getting installed this week before I head to Thunderhill on Monday. This time, I'm going to swap front/back before *every* track day and watch the tire wear more closely. I could also use rear toe rods..

[Badgerbimmer]

Those look like they have some good life left to them after a lot of use! I run 'em until I see cords!!

[R3ctivision]

Yeah, I probably should have tried another day. The right rear had me worried though :( In any case, already ordered the new ones.

[R3ctivision]

https://youtu.be/aNRdB-6zmmc?t=6m0s for the action!

[TheRealJA105]

I'd swap the rears and keep running them, plenty of life left.

[Ryephile]

Thanks for sharing.

Your tire wear looks average for the FE4 cars with a good track alignment. Lots of inboard and outboard wear up front, with tons of center tread left. If we didn't already know the dynamic camber loss was a problem, it would seem the tires are ~10 PSI low.

This makes me really anxious to get the stiffer stabilizer bars on the car.