[eimarshall]

Originally Posted by khcoaching

I'll for sure be doing some Ridge days with it once it gets sorted!

They were brand new 3Rs with a late 21' date code. No clue, the last set I did multiple 45 flats on cords.

Ken

I thought I read that 3Rs needed a heat cycle or a few hundred miles on the street to work well?

[khcoaching]

Originally Posted by eimarshall

I thought I read that 3Rs needed a heat cycle or a few hundred miles on the street to work well?

Maybe....I looked at my notes from when I had the DSSV done and that was also sort of the case. Either way, I'm trying something else!

[khcoaching]

Off topic......

I was coaching at Nelson Ledge this week and our vision performance specialist came out in his new to him 2017 Corvette Grand Sport and..... I was able to get a couple of laps in it. What a fun car! Pretty impressive even with the 6 year old stock run flats.

Ken

[khcoaching]

Not a lot to update....

I did get in a single session last week and was happy to see the speed numbers come back up and were the highest I have had. It must have been weird conditions that previous day day as both speed and grip were down. The car worked pretty darn well and in my only session, I matched the best from the other week, not pushing too hard. Compared to my PB, I was actually up except for T1, so very encouraging.




For my next day, I also have these to try. These came highly recommended from a contact and the price is very very good. Hankook Z214 C51 compound - 315/30/18. Unfortunately it might be a month before I can try them.

[khcoaching]

And in ZLE news.....

I finally got a chance to start checking out and working the ZLE. Pretty darn nice car! A lot of little things to get it up to scratch, but all pretty easy, just time and $$.

The car has some pretty cool upgrades:

- MCS 2 way
- Custom cage and rear seat delete
- APR Wing

The to do list is pretty long, but is basic maintenance, all new brakes, exhaust rattle, adding adjustable rear arms, update the alignment, along with a bunch of other misc stuff.

So far I have:

- Replaced rear tires
- Bleed the intercooler (Weapon X)
- Brake caliper clean and service
- New rear rotors and pads (Ferodo 1.11)
- New Giro front rotors and pads (Ferodo 3.12)
- ARP extended front studs
- Data logged for the tune
- Lift pads
- Brake ducts

I'll drop the car off at the dealer next week to leave for the alignment and hopefully drive it on track early May - can't wait!



Wheels need a deep clean after bedding in the brakes!



Should I start a separate thread for it?

Ken

[kropscamaro16]

so weird question but how do you know when you are ready to try out slicks? and what is the main purpose of them vs a tire like a 3r?

[khcoaching]

Originally Posted by kropscamaro16

so weird question but how do you know when you are ready to try out slicks? and what is the main purpose of them vs a tire like a 3r?

Great question. It really is individual, but there are some great metrics that can help guide you. In my case, there are a few factors that have me looking for more grip.

- Other cars with similar or faster laptimes and what tires they are running. (The fastest laptime on 3Rs is 3.0 seconds faster with a highly modded R8) Otherwise, that's it. The cars that are faster than me, typically are much more expensive or are highly modded with sticker tires.

- What laptime is my platform capable of? There isn't a faster Gen6 Camaro at The Ridge or Pacific, let alone an SLE.

- Changing driver technique with no real change in laptime.

- Data that supports max potential Lat/Long G for the given mods.

At this point, I've tried 2 sets if 3Rs with my current setup, changed a few techniques and the laptime has stayed the same. I'm pretty happy with my driving, but the next step in what is holding me back is wanting more lateral grip.

If my pace was 10 seconds slower, I wouldn't worry about wanting slicks.

Hopefully that makes some sense!

Ken

[khcoaching]

#14 Ridge Motorsport Park - April 26, 2023

Without Chicane 1:46.22

Some interesting updates. I signed up for an SCCA "Track Night" since it was cheap and close, I thought it would be a good event to test a few things. I wanted to try a "softer" setup to see if I could get the tires to roll over more as well as address the ice mode issues with different brake pads. I secured a mild sponsorship from Cobalt and have used their pads on client cars, so I was stoked to try a front and rear set.

The changes were:

Sway bars - I went from #2 to #1 (softer) for both the front and rear as the balance of the car is fine, I was just hoping to get the tire to bite a bit more.

Brake pads _ Cobalt contacted me about trying some pads and recommended the XR1 front and XR3 rears for the Camaros. We chatted about my recent ice mode issues and they mentioned it could be due to a too aggressive rear pad. They sent a set of XR1 front and XR3 rears to replace my basically new Ferodo 3.12s and 1.11 rears.

Results -

We did 3x20min sessions and I had maybe 3 clean laps the entire evening. That said, it was enough to figure a few things out and get solid data. Temps were warm! 70+ degrees was a nice change from every other time out this year.

Sway bar adjustments - Bottom line, the car did feel like it dug in better, but I went slower. My official PB is a 45.0, and I went 46.22 feeling like I drove a bit better. (see data) I honestly couldn't tell a lot of difference, other than the car felt a bit freer. Same balance and I did feel like rear grip on exits wasn't quite as good, but data says otherwise. Also note: The temps were over 20 degree warmer and the 3rs worked better in these conditions
For the last session, I dropped to to 31 hot and I feel this was also an improvement.

Data shows where I worked on my driving and found some pretty solid improvement. You can see where I was braking early to not get ice mode, but as the tires got properly hot, no issue there and I need to build some confidence with this.

Note - BLUE is the outing and RED is my PB -



Brake Pads - The ice mode issues have only showed up recently. I never have had an issue until I got the last alignment and part of me think the extra camber in the front is the issue, though I think that is an emotional response. I think the actual issue is I am pushing my braking later and later and the 3rs, just aren't that good. My contact at Cobalt thought maybe my current pad election may be the cause.

The Cobalts were a bolt on and go. My Girodisc rotors came new at 36mm and during this change I was qt 35.8mm and the MIN is 34mm, so no issue there. They required basically zero bed-in other than an easy out lap. I'm a pretty big Ferodo 3.12 fan and while they work great and are pretty easy on rotors, they are not easy on your wallet. The Cobalts have slightly less initial bite, but better power in the middle of the pedal stroke. I'm a fan of these and the data shows less brake pressure is needed. (Though I was braking early) They do seem to be harder on the rotors and I'll my eye on that.

What about Ice Mode? Yeah, I got it twice in earlier sessions. I really think this comes down to the 3rs and not anything do with the brakes. The last session where I lowered the psi, I didn't have a single issue and was working my way up to my normal brake points.

Here is the data: Note - you can see where I was bit better in some spots, but braking early in others. If you look closely, I also was getting slightly better drives.

Note - BLUE is the outing and RED is my PB -



Tuning - So...this has turned into a bit of a disappointment. When I did the first run, the car felt slow and MPH was way off....like way off. The top speed was down 4mph. For the 2nd run, I loaded the stock tune and the speed came back. When these things are stock, I think they are tuned pretty well and are very finicky to conditions. For proper results, I think the car need to be tuned in person and not remote tuned.

Next Outing -

I'm doing a time attack Sunday and this is where I'll running the Hankook Z214s. They are 315/30/18 and I'm looking forward to what is hopefully a lot more grip. Finger crossed. I also went back to my baseline swaybar settings.

Here are a few pics, including what I think I an optimistic 0-60. The 3R tire wear is pretty good for over a day of hard laps!

[eimarshall]

You ran into traffic at TNIA!? SHOCKER! LOL!! yeah, you're way to fast for that group! They are easy and very cheap though.

Nice report on the brake pads. Comparable to the 3.12s? More like the 1.11?

Good luck at the time attack!!

[khcoaching]

Originally Posted by eimarshall

You ran into traffic at TNIA!? SHOCKER! LOL!! yeah, you're way to fast for that group! They are easy and very cheap though.

Nice report on the brake pads. Comparable to the 3.12s? More like the 1.11?

Good luck at the time attack!!

HA! I knew it would be rough, but it wasn't horrible. The XR1s have more bite and way more power than the 1.11s. I'll see how they go with more grip.

Ken

[khcoaching]

#15 Ridge Motorsport Park - April 30, 2023

Without Chicane 1:44.19


THIS was the update I was hoping write last year! After a very frustrating end of season last year and the beginning season this year, I was beginning to think I was pretty much at the end of where the car could go in its current state, meaning, this was as fast as it was going to go without more fundamental changes. In my professional role, we know that when you make a change and the laptime is unresponsive, you go back, triple check your data as well as your settings and most of the time, you'll find a single item holding you back.

Last week, I had tried some different sway bar settings, as well as different brake pads and yet again, the laptime was the same (or slower) but I was having to drive much harder than I thought was necessary for what was basically a slower laptime. I concurred as well as someone I sent my data to, that the stiffer settings I had for my baseline were better.

So, on to this week. I signed up for a track day with a time attack element and it was the perfect environment to try the set of Hankook Z214 tires I had purchased. I put the sway bars back to where they were, checked everything over and ended up having a great day. Read below for the details:

Hankook Z214 315/30/18 C51 Tires: I said last year I wasn't sold on the 3Rs and what did I do? I bought another set earlier this year, mainly to finish testing the alignment I had done at the end of 2022. After driving these, I'll don't think I'll ever buy a set of 3Rs again. Not only were these tires way faster, just driving to the track was a dream. Bumps were gone, low temp grip was great and the car actually rode, nice. I'm a dumbass for waiting this long.

The time attack was set up like this - 2x10 min warm ups and 4x10 min time attacks, essentially 20 min apart. No time to waste. I set my cold pressures at 24, went for my first warm up and my 2nd flying lap was .6 under my PB....BOOM. The car was a joy to drive. Instant warm up, responsive, the pissed off nature was gone, zero brake issues and mid corner grip felt like a Hoosier. I pulled in after 2 hot laps and sat out the second W/U, as I knew I was good to go. Hot pressures were 31, so I left them for TA#1

They sent us off based on lap times we did in warm up and I was 4th, even though I didn't do WU#2. TA#1 was good, I still hadn't figured out the tires, but got a 44.19 behind an insanely good R8 and GT3RS. (See the video for my pissed off moment!) Hot pressure was 35 and I bled them down to 32psi.

TA#2/3 were both solid 44.29 and 44.60 with me making a mistake in #3 resulting in a slower time. For #4, I lowered the tires to 31psi as I felt they needed to rollover a bit more. This really helped and for the last session I ran a 44.30 and was on my way to a 43.8 but I got greedy and lost time in T13.

Overall, I ended up with the 4th fastest lap time of the day, against 200K+ cars and once again I am blown away how good this car is.

The tires were impressive. I'll take some pics of the wear, but they seemed to wear well, have instant grip and feel like an R7 Hoosier. Their consistency is out of this world. EVERY hot lap I did was in the 44s, crazy. And.....no ice mode. The Cobalt pads worked great although I did experience some ABS when I lost my mind a bit on the brakes.

Here are some data graphs and video link -

44.19



44.19 vs PB with steering angle and steering speed. (Black is the OLD PB) Notice how much more my hands had to move with the 3Rs.



I also ran the lower pressures for the #4th run and here is a data graph between the #1 run and the #4 run. It liked the lower pressure. (Black is the lower pressure)



Here is graph with my laptimes and sectors from TA#1 and TA#4 - I ran 2 of my PB sectors in #4, which shows that the tires still work after a few runs.



Video link -

https://youtu.be/4ZNRFWJFwto


So......what's next for the car? I don't know. My goal was to run a 44 without touching the drivetrain and we smashed that. I may leave it as is and just enjoy driving it, now that the laptime challenge is over. That said, I did buy a used APR wing to try.....

[Mi1lerTime]

Great stuff, Ken. Love reading the updates.

[khcoaching]

I pulled the wheels and also checked the brakes. The pads didn't even wear 1mm, which is great, but the rotors are a bit more beat up. I only had a small amount of cracking in the middle and you can see below what they look like now.



The tire wear looks pretty darn good to me. This is after after what is essentially 5x20min runs, full gas and I think they will go another day pretty easily. The alignment seems to be pretty good as well, considering the pace. ( I sent the pic off to my chassis contact) Note - the tires aren't really level in that pic.

[eimarshall]

Nice Ken!! Way to go!! You look very composed and controlled on all those laps. Not nearly as frantic as the 3R laps.

Get that Supra outta there!! lol!!