[ultra_supra]

Mallala - Day 3

Rob (Sinergy Motorsport / PVP Imports) and i went out to Mallala again yesterday (Friday). There were less people on this track day (10 cars in total) and at any one time we had no more than four cars on the track. You would often find yourself driving alone on a deserted track wondering where everyone had gone - quite unnerving at times! :blink:

Rob went out in his S2000 which was totally unchanged from our recent November 2nd trackday (just a new tank of fuel) and again achieved 1'22s in the first session. He equalled his best time of 1'22.74 from Nov2 with a 1'22.86 but couldn't better it in the significantly warmer and drier conditions of the day. These were amazing times from a normally aspirated (NA) car with only factory optioned coilovers and a catback exhaust! :notworthy: We both ran the same Bridgestone RE55S semi-slicks from last fortnight. All lap times were measured accurately with the same automatic infrared laptimer as previous days, not hand timed / stopwatch.

We weren't able to get a new set of front brake rotors for my Supra in time so i again went out with my undersized wafer-like factory rotors. :banghead: Hell, i could have gotten thicker ones from my favourite Indian restaurant (oh hang on, that's roti, not rotor). The only mechanical change that we managed to implement after the Nov2 trackday was the detuning of 'the dyno freak' with the reinsertion of the factory cat, replacing the 2.25" restrictor plate that clearly didn't stop it hitting the 1.2bar boost cut on the previous trackdays.

Running at a peak of 0.9bar (13psi) i would have been putting out 210rwkW (~250kW) compared to the SA Supra Dyno Day's 265rwkW at 1.21bar (17.6psi), so i wasn't hitting boost cut in every gear and having traction control kick in with each gear change like before. However, I managed to equal and then partially eclipse (1'26.12) my previous best laptime with *significantly* less power than before. :rock: This shows that kilowatts aren't everything on the track - esp with 20% less power than before!


Before lunch, I handed my keys over Rob (who should take credit for building my car) and let him loose with the big 'ol Supra. He pulled out a couple of 1'24s with a best time of 1'24.54 in a car with generally stock suspension :respect: - lowered springs only, no coilovers, no sway bars, no front strut brace, factory bushes. He did experience the same problem of the car squirming under hard braking into the northern hairpin that i had been having. I thought that it was the rear brakes warping, he thought it was the shocks being too soft. After discussing this with one of the race car drivers there we theorised that this was a combination of the suspension being too soft (despite the lowered springs) and the rear brakes giving up.

Rob described the Supra as wallowing like a boat around the corners and said that there was a lot more potential in it if we put some coilovers in. Chatting later with the Bendix rep (Rob's mate) he was confident that we would get 2 more seconds by replacing my worn and pitiful wafer-like rotors with new slotted rotors. So with new rotors, proper coilovers, and my average driving abilities, i could potentially get down to low 1'22s sometime next year... :whistling:

I also got to drive Rob's S2000 and managed to get a 1'33.9 on my third lap in a car that i had never driven before and at a leisurely 3/4 pace (because i didn't want to spin it or smack it into a wall - as it wasn't my car!). I will be the first to attest that it handles beautifully for a factory delivered car - the steering was unbelievable (it went where you wanted it to go) and it handled like a go kart! If you had turned in too much into a corner, only a small correction of the wheel got you an instant response!

Unfortunately it got too hot after lunch (30'C) and we both found that our laptimes were 1-2 seconds slower. My engine temp gauge would rise to H at the end of two hot laps, requiring two cooldown laps before attempting to wind it up again. On inspection in the pits after those runs, my coolant overflow tank was completely dry. This happened a couple of times, so not wanting to risk overheating the engine, i called it a day at 3pm. Rob stopped his laps about 40min later.

Anyway, enough ramblings from me. Hope that Small Car Sunday was another SA Supra success and i look forward to catching up with you all at the SA Supra Xmas bbq next weekend!

Cheers - K