I just attended a private track day this past Labor day at Gingerman (Wangfest). I had a blast. This is the first time I ran the R modded. I ran it back a few months ago pretty much all stock at Autobahn country club. Well...stock minus the 205/50/15 ADVAN AD08s, a header, drop in filter, and Hawk pads.

The setup now is pretty unchanged except that I have a set of Koni Yellows with 340F and 360R Ground Controls. They took care of some of the understeer...but the car still understeers a ton. But this is all relative as I usually track my S2000.

You can fast forward to the end of the vid if you want to see me going off track lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxD5-Ni-GFI

The car was pretty quick overall, I thought. We ran the track forwards for most of the day and then it went CCW for the last 3 hours. Half hour sessions. So sick. I did rip up the tires PRETTY badly because of the understeer and the session length....pics up tomorrow on that.

I wasn't really paying much attention, but I think that the fastest time I ripped off forwards was like 1:55ish....maybe a bit less. Actually...it was about the same time in CCW also...but I was still learning the track going CCW. CCW is a a faster track. When running clockwise, turn 5-6 is a weird, reducing radius turn. In CCW, that would be turns 5-7, and it's a really nice smooth line. There are a couple other turns that are faster as well in CCW. I liked it a lot. It's like a whole different track.

The next time I take my car(s) out there, I'm going to time the laps with the track master app. I think I should be able to do like a 1:46 - 1:47ish with the S2000 and 1:54-1:53ish with the R.

Next season, if all goes well, I'm thinking maybe a set of 225/45R15 front and 205/55R15 rear R-compounds on the R (with wider wheels, ofcourse). Plus maybe a 5.0:1 final drive. That should put me in the same time zone as my S2000 is at now....which would be awesome for the R.

For the S2000, I'm thinking a 4.4 final drive and R compounds as well. No more street tires for either car....unless it's raining, I guess.

We'll see how it pans out. I'm pretty broke right now lol.

 

Yeah, last session of WMHM this year was done in reverse....very fun They expect to do that more in the future.

 

I was at WMHM also...but found out that my S2000's rotor was cracked when I went out for the CCW session. So I lapped it once at WMHM...at like 20mph lol.

 

Never been to gingerman but i did run the pocono long course backwards and that was very hard because all the turns in the infield of the north course portion were all late apexes and i wasnt very good at them.

running a course backwards is definitely something different, especially when the courses are built to be run normally.

 

I was there for wangfest. Running CCW seem like a lot of fun, but a few of these turns are bit more scary. I didn't drive my R, but i did ride along. I have to do some prep work if i want to track the next gingerman track day in oct.

 

I might just bring both cars in oct.

 

Nice! I gotta get some editing software so I can chop my video down from my gopro to under 15 minutes so I can put it on youtube but from what I can tell I was running like 1:50-1:54 in the ITR and I wasnt really winding out all the gears cause that long straight just makes me feel like I am beating the **** out of the car for no reason haha.


As far as the understeer is concerned... you might be driving it too much like its RWD. Just mash the pedal and you should be fine. Any stock-ish ITR I have ever driven at Gingerman tends to want to swing around...

 

^I just used default *** windows movie maker software.