I'm going to repost the track reports as taken from 3S-Racers (a sub-list of Team3S) as I know some of you will be interested in reading about open tracking... This first post is Philip Glazatov's (from Supercar Engineering) report (reprinted with permission).


Welcome back to all whom I met at Road America http://roadamerica.com !
There were an unheard of 17!!! 3/S cars there this weekend! About half of
the cars ran at least a few or all of the track sessions! We had so many
cars there, we probably were only exceeded in numbers by the Corvettes and
the F-bodies. Many thanks to Jesse Rink for organizing and promoting this
mini-gathering.

All of us started preparing for this event long time ago. Rich Merritt got
his Cedar Rapids mafia all pumped up and had his car prepped top notch with
new tranny, big rotors, big turbos and big boost. Jack T had a radical FMIC
setup where he chopped off the front of the car and replaced it with a
forward-tilted intercooler, large radiator and two huge cooling fans. The
stock '94 bumper covers this masterpiece, so the car still looks neat and
almost "innocent". Jesse Rink prepared his car with all the required track
and appearance accessories, no little detail was missed. Jon Wieman had his
new SCE Big Red kit. Rudy Arias had ran insanely fast NA, now with
polyurethane suspension bushings and still with Axxis Ultimate pads that
have turned into charcoals and got very thin because he started using them
at Road America back in October and ran them through ten other events.
Oskar Persson brought his (last ever made) immaculate pearl white 96 TT.
Andy Schleiger brought his VR4 with a 355 mm StopTech brake kit. I had a
StopTech kit myself, Saner sway bars, a radical camber and caster setup in
the front and 18" slicks on stock TT rims. I know I missed many other folks
who came, so please forgive me and help me with what you brought to the
event. Many just came to watch, cheer, help and keep us company, and big
thanks to them too.

We had an excellent track time. All our cars were fast, passed many others
and were only passed by few. No accidents and only a few off-track
excursions. On the other hand, a couple of BMW M3's were toast by midday
Saturday. A newly invented term to describe what many brand-new M3 do at
the track is "doing an M3", as in "He did an M3", or "He pulled an M3",
which refers to spinning the car along a figure 3 like trajectory and
putting it into a wall or rolling it, banging up all four corners and
totalling the car.

The 355 mm StopTech front brake kit performed perfectly. The brakes were
biting strong and right away, I was not afraid to follow other cars
closely. The pedal travel was short and the pedal was very firm all the
time. Any brakes could be made to overheat at such a fast and high braking
track as Road America, but the StopTech setup worked amazingly well to my
full satisfaction. While I was running it very hard I was coming back to
the pits and Rudy was checking the rotor temperature with his IR gauge and
it read only something around 290F, in comparison to the usual 500-700,
even lower than to the normally cool currently stock rear brakes that this
time read about 320F. Mind you, the actual in-use temperatures on the front
brakes exceed 1300-1400F, so this just tells how fast these StopTech brakes
cool!
http://www.supercar-engineering.com/ima ... _stock.jpg
http://supercar-engineering.com/images/ ... ricBig.jpg

I made an additional improvement to my suspension setup. I installed
thinner M10 bolts instead of the M12 as the upper of the two bolts that
hold the knuckle to the strut. The knuckle and the wheel tilted inwards,
adding 2 more degrees of negative camber. I had to install thick wheel
spacers to prevent wheel-strut rubbing. Although such thick ones were
probably were not required, but I had nothing better than the 25 mm H&R
spacers. But the camber alone was not all the trick. The main difference
came from the maximum caster angle. That let me keep the negative camber on
the outside front wheel in tight turns. Without the SCE camber-caster
plates the camber would have gone almost back to hell in tight turns. But
with a large caster I had a neutral car in slow tight turns and still a
safe and not an oversteering car in high-speed large radius turns. The
spacers were needed only for the strut clearance and not for the brakes.
They made the car look better too. With only 3 degree of negative static
camber the top edge of the wheel was flush with the fender.
http://www.supercar-engineering.com/ima ... ercar1.jpg
http://www.supercar-engineering.com/ima ... ercar2.jpg

The Saner sway bars helped to keep the car flatter. I also figured the
unintended, but nevertheless the correct way to connect the front bar. The
stock bars are 23/22 mm front/rear, but the Saner ones are 1.25"/1.00". The
much thicker sway bar makes the car understeer more. To fix that, you have
to bolt the end links from the inner side of the bar ends. This also
positions these links closer to the pivot points of the lower control arms,
making the front sway bar a little softer, effectively reducing the
understeer.
http://www.supercar-engineering.com/ima ... r_link.jpg

I did not plan to use the set of slicks that I had this time. But with my
new track wheels not fitting in yet, I decided to give them a try. I
discovered that they were too soft. They were gripping well but if I pushed
them hard through a turn they would overheat by the exit. They would be
cool and sticky again though by next turn. I noticed higher turn exit
speeds and lower rolling resistance, but my lap times did not change
noticeably. I will have to review the videos to tell for sure. Couple times
I tried to slide and squeal them like I have been doing with the Yoko A032R
and corded them. Oh, well, I then drove them home all 450 miles without any
noticeable additional wear.

A few low points is some of us who like pushing the limits ended up with
engine problems. A Mickey Mouse played a trick on Jack T's engine. I will
let him tell about it. Rich did something TBD to his engine that made it
knock and smoke. I had no problems at the track, but ironically, on the way
back home I parked to talk to a customer and kept the engine running. The
weather was hot, the engine overheated and I did not notice it. I started
driving and the engine was running so bad I thought I forgot to release the
parking brake. Then I glanced on the gauges and saw my water temperature
deep in the red zone. The engine got toasted without the damned @#$%
high-temp NPG+ coolant even boiling. Later I noticed my radiator fan
connectors were not reconnected after all the work I did while getting
ready for the event. The engine now seems low on power, so I will be
checking my compression. Forced upgrades, here I come.

A few of the issues aside, we all had a lot of fun and I can confidently
say for all of those who attended that we will do it again!

Philip
http://supercar-engineering.com

P.S. I will post some lap videos as usual. In the meantime you could watch
the videos from previous events:
http://supercar-engineering.com/vid00-ALL.htm

_________________

Best in Show - NG07
2010 - 6G74/3.5L E16Gs - 688awhp/679awtq (Race+Meth)
2011 - 6G74/3.5L 68HTAs - 740awhp/762awtq (Race+Meth)
2013 - 6G74/3.5L MTC Stage4 - 908awhp/832awtq (Race+Meth)

Here is Rich Merritt's track report...


SpeedSeekers at Road America April 16-18

First, the good news:

We made the following mods over the winter to my 1994 3000GT VR4:
15G turbos, 560cc injectors, SAFCi AFC, and water/alcohol injection, all
installed by the Stealth Boys and Mike the Mechanic, and tuned by Mike
using a wideband oxygen sensor
Added a set of used Coleman 13 in. two-piece rotors (from SuperCar
Engineering) to go with my Big Reds and Carbotech pads.
Removed a/c condensor, boiled out the radiator and oil cooler.

Results:
NO OVERHEATING UNDER HIGH BOOST (Hooray, hooray!!!) For the first time in
the history of the car (nearly five years!), I have been able to overcome
overheating problems! Before, running 14 psi on 9B turbos would cause my
car to heat up in 3-4 laps. This weekend, we were running up to 20 psi
without overheating.

At 15 psi on pump gas, it ran strong, hitting 130-135 mph on the straights,
including one blast up to 140 mph (on my only run without a passenger),
going into Turn 5.

Brakes held up fairly well (more on this later)

Passed everyone in my B class except a "truck" (fiberglass body over a tube
frame, big block engine, and 900 hp on nitrous. The owner won One Lap of
America last year in a similar vehicle)

Mike the Mechanic rode along with a data logger and was extremely pleased
with everything, including the knock sums, injector duty cycles and all
that techie engine tuning stuff. Maybe he will come on here and explain.

Now the bad news:

At 20 psi with water/alcohol injection and 100 octane race gas, we got in
about 5-7 laps before fouling the plugs. It was a combination of spark
blowout, oil blowby, and gawdonlyknows what else. Mike the Mechanic will
explain. We did a 30 minute plug change and went back to 15 psi for the
rest of the weekend. Still, even with those problems, at 20 psi the car
felt as strong as the two $50,000 tuner cars I rode in at the National
Gathering last year.

We loosened an intercooler hose once at 15 psi. Spectators said you could
hear me coming from a half mile away because of the awesome HISSSSS from
the hose leak. Philip G was riding along at the time.

Finally, on the last session on Sunday, I done something evil to the
engine. Dunno what yet. Maybe valve train, maybe something else. Mike the
Mechanic has it now, and will analyze it to find out. It's a 90,000 mile
motor, so maybe we just overstressed it a smidge.

Brakes worked well, but I pushed them to the limit just to see what they
could handle. I discovered that it *IS* possible to boil Motul brake fluid
and it *IS* possible to wear out a set of Carbotech pads in a single
weekend. My brand new pads are toast. But I really hammered those brakes.

What it needs now:
I dunno what it will take to fix the engine problem, but it looks like we
will have to

o Upgrade the ignition to solve spark blowout
o Double up the clamps on all the boost hoses.
o Install crank vents. We are overpowering the stock PCV, even with a catch
tank.
o Increase the size of the water/alcohol tank to 2 gal. The 1 gal tank will
never make it a full session.
(By the bye, we were using 7 gal. of gas per 20 minute session. Talk
about running rich! )
o Improve cooling of the brakes. I already have blowers forcing air onto
the rotors and water injection directly onto the rotors, but hauling that
beast down from 130-140 mph still heats them up. It looks like we may have
to install air ducts to the rotors again. Jon Weiman and I are considering
running water injection to the calipers (like TransAm cars do) to cool the
caliper and fluid. Philip G also suggests that I use the little plates that
go between the pistons and the pads, because they help dissipate heat.


Further observations:

Mike the Mechanic was amazed by the whole thing. We've been trying to
explain to him how a road race is entirely different from drag racing, but
he had to see it for himself. The big thing, he said, was that the car is
boosting 15 psi (or 20 psi) the entire time. Except for when we lift to
brake, the car is WOT for 20 minutes. Running at high boost for so long
causes all sorts of problems, such as blowby, boost leaks, and whatnot. We
run in the 3,000 to 7,000 rpm band, so spoolup is not a big problem. The
only time we could use more boost is in the 3,000 rpm corners, such as turn
1, where we enter it in 4th gear at about 100 mph and nail the throttle.
That corner is too fast for 3rd and too slow for 4th, so you can't get a
good drive out of the turn. We have similar problems at turns 5, 6, 8,
Canada Corner and 14, where the corner speed is not ideal for the turbos
when taken in a high gear. Essentially, the turbos are not in their sweet
spot at 3,000 rpm, so it takes a second or so for them to give a really
good kick. Mike says maybe O2 dumps would help. Or a small 35 shot of
nitrous.

Getting scary: Any of you who have run Road America know about the Kink.
Getting the car a little sideways at 110 mph in the Kink is kinda scary,
because the walls are so close on both sides. That is a big time pucker
factor. The pro advice is, if you lose it in the Kink, ride the grass down
the left side. Don't try to pull it back onto the track. If you do, the car
may ping-pong off the walls. The hot dogs go through here at 120+, so I
still have a lot to learn.

Lap times: We didn't time many laps. The locals were complaining that the
track was green, and lap times were way down because of recent rains and no
races yet this year to lay down rubber on the track. We got a couple of
laps at 2:46 at 15 psi, which is far off my goal of 2:30. At 20 psi, we
didn't have a clear lap, because we caught up to more people and were in
traffic the whole time. If I had to guess, I'd say we can run 2:40 at 20
psi, and high 2:30s are possible. Alas, 2:30 will require Hoosiers, more
horsepower, and a better driver. Maybe I better trailer it out to Las
Vegas and take E.T.'s school.

M3 Story: Philip G told you about the M3 incidents. Seems like every time I
go to a track, some d*ldo puts an M3 into a wall. This prompts me to
restate this from last year:
Q: What are the three most dangerous things in the world?
A: A Jewish commando with an Uzi, a mugger with a straight razor, and a
doctor in a new M3.

Gobs of 3000GTs: At least 17 Stealths and 3000GTs showed up to race,
spectate, and mingle. We had a little area in the paddock where the
faithful gathered, and somewhere out there in cyberspace will be a group
photo. There was so much techie talk, the air was soggy with tuning theory.
I could barely follow along when Jack T, Philip G, Mike the Mechanic, and
the Milwaukee and Minneapolis racers really got into the deep tuner stuff.
At least I learned what an O2 dump is. When it came time to push my car up
on a trailer, we had more helping hands than we had space for them on the
car.

Five years ago, I never saw another 3000GT on the track, and today the
track is full of them. We got rookies coming up that are showing a lot of
talent, experienced guys getting faster and faster, and someday we'll be
the car to beat. We have engineers like Philip G and Geoff designing,
building, and supplying road racing parts; racers like Jack T pushing the
engine envelope to the absolute limits; and Mike the Mechanic figuring out
how to go really really fast for a reasonable amount of money.

When Mike perfects his water/alcohol injection system, we can all run a
reliable 20 psi/500 hp against those Z06es, M3s and 911 turbos. I am Mike's
development mule and his "proof of concept," and our early results indicate
that water/alcohol injection and wide band O2 tuning is definitely the way
to go. If we get the car back together in time for the National Gathering,
you'll see for yourselves.

Rich/slow old poop

_________________

Best in Show - NG07
2010 - 6G74/3.5L E16Gs - 688awhp/679awtq (Race+Meth)
2011 - 6G74/3.5L 68HTAs - 740awhp/762awtq (Race+Meth)
2013 - 6G74/3.5L MTC Stage4 - 908awhp/832awtq (Race+Meth)

Here is my track report...


Track Report at Road America for the MFBA Speed Seekers event in Elkhart Lake, WI.

Well considering this was my first-ever open track event, I obviously won't be enlightening anyone with new revelations or track tips that will solve previously unknown mysteries. I'm sure the more experienced road course aficionados who attended this event will be able to better articulate the happenings during the event as opposed to my senseless ramblings. Regardless, my intent for this track report is moreso directed to the hope that other inexperienced drivers, such as myself, will walk away with a meager breadcrumb of knowledge they were otherwise without.

Prior to the event, I spent a good deal of time trying to best understand how to prepare myself, and my 91 RT/TT, for the event. After ingesting the wealth of information on 3S racers and past track reports, the first thing I opted for was upgrading my stock brake setup. With the help of Philip Glazatov, I decided on pulling off my stock rotors (which were warped, and in dire need of replacement anyways) and installing Powerslot rotors in the front and rear along with Carbotech XP8 (front) and XP9 (rear) dedicated track pads. In addition, I also splurged for a full compliment of SS brake lines from 3SX so I could avoid the misfortune of the stock rubber lines giving me problems. To top it off, I also spent a good deal of time reading, and memorizing, and forgetting, and re-memorizing, Rich Merritt's "tips for beginner open-track rookies" - which should be available in paperback or hardcover at the very least. It was through this mini-book (or perhaps, bible) that I was enlightened to a barrel-full of goodies such as pulling off the dust shields from the brake setup and also switching out my old dirty brake fluid in favor of Motul 600. Not to mention, giving me a respectable understanding of how to properly (and improperly - something I was guilty of on numerous occasions) apply the brakes to help conserve pads and rotors and save me from sliding precariously off the track. The rest of the car is not heavily modified. Other than brakes, my car is BPU with Tein-S springs, a CFDS, cranky pulley, fuel pump, and afc-ii. My plan was to keep boost to around 12psi the entire weekend to help ward off heatsoak on the ICs.

Friday night, Speed Seekers held a seminar at a local hotel, which I surmise bored the daylights out of the more experienced drivers, but I feel was a good wake-up call for novices like myself. Granted, the repetition was almost to the point of broken record'ism, but it was something that someone like me needed to have drilled into my head. They covered the basics of: what the corner flag workers do, when to pass, when not to pass (which includes several entertaining videos of the same Porsche over and over again), braking techniques, how to maneuver your car through the turns and clipping the apex, and most of have, having fun out there.

Parade lap time Saturday morning. Rich Merritt took time away from his own schedule to ride along with me during the parade laps to point out several things about the track and what I should anticipate when out there the first time. Supposedly, the parade lap was to be a leisurely Sunday drive around town, but I don't recall plugging away at 90mph during my Sunday jaunts. The pace was faster than expected, but not balls-out by any means either.

Another hour or so and Group D was ready for staging so I headed to the false grid and pulled near the rear of the pack. My nerves were a little high strung at this time, but I had Rich Merritt riding shotgun to help instruct me along the way. I kept the speeds considerably lower than the rest of the day as I focused on learning the lines I was being taught, and also learning on trusting my car. In retrospect, that was the biggest obstacle I faced. It wasn't going into turn #5 at a sharp ninety degree angle, it was trusting that when I maneuvered my car to clip the apex (or better said, "attempt to) at turn #5 and give it throttle, the car would actually do as instructed and not have a mind of it's own to wander off the course. Since I had never come close to pushing my car at this level, I was unaware (and I think to some extent, still am) of my vehicle's limits. I can say however, that the car was more-than-accommodating to my reactions and I started trusting my car more as the sessions went on. Rich was a great instructor and really helped me to focus on driving straight and keeping a line as opposed to following the car in front of me - something I was doing from time to time. In session one, Rudy Arias was behind me in his N/A, and I definitely learned why people say a good driver with a slower car can easily hang with a bad driver with a faster car. Rudy was on my ass throughout most of the session, always closing the gap in the corners until my car (not driver experience or skill) outpaced him in the straights. I think this was a valuable lesson for me.

Session two was much better as I managed to work out some of the jitterbugs. Jon Wieman road along with me this time to instruct, and I found that his instructing style is much like Rich's - which makes sense since I believe Jon was a protege' of Rich's. Jon tried to get me to come into the corners deeper and turn in later before clipping the apex. I had a tendency to turn in too early and the resulting error was not having as much track to accelerate out of the turn. I think I made some decent corrections along the way, while not doing as well in other areas. Jon mentioned my navigation through the kink was very good but that I needed to work on the carousel (turn #9 I believe) to increase me overall speed throughout and shoot out of their like a bat out of hell.


Session 3 started off really good, but I think I got a little cocky and started coming into a few turns a little hot which got me squirly two or three times when hitting the brakes. Chalk this up to a rookie driver thinking he's learning faster than he is. I backed off after this happened a few times, when suddenly I came out of Canada Corner and BAM, my car starting chugging along, as if sputtering. I crept through turns #13 and #14 about 45 mph with a car on my ass, probably upset, but I was trying to hobble back to the pits on the main straight. When I got back to the paddock, the problem was instantly revealed when popping the hood - my plug wire on cylinder #1 blew off and was arcing like mad against the coil. We fixed that in a jiff and prepared for session 4.

For session 4, Oskar Persson went out with me to instruct and it seemed the encouragement and instruction I received from Jon and Rich had paid off. I went into session 4 with the attitude of taking it slower than I did in 3, and focusing on the lines and braking. The end result was incredible and I think my last session of the day was by far my fastest and best. Oskar provided some good tips as well and re-itterated many things that Jon did, which helped me verify where my weaknesses were and some of my strengths. Overall, I was extremely happy with my last session of the day.

My only session on Sunday morning turned out to be gradual improvement from my last session on Saturday. Jon Wieman tagged along with me again and I think he was happy with the progress I made from the previous day. This was the only session of the weekend that I did not get passed by anyone and was 100% satisfied with how things went. I was hitting my apex's better, albeit not perfect by any means, they were improved from the previous times out. When session 5 ended I had a big grin on my face.

All in all, for 5 sessions, I couldn't be more elated with the results. My main goal of the weekend was 1) get my car through the event without any damage, and 2) learn a few things that improve my driving ability. I think I accomplished what I set out to do. However, Jon, Rich, and Oskar would be more qualified to answer #2 than I would. It's easy for me to *think* I improved along the way, but those guys (especially Jon since he rode with me 3 of the 5 sessions) would better be able to rate my ability and improvements along the way as an observer. I would like to add, that without having an instructor along with me, I think my results would have been FAR different. I learned a LOT from them and can't imagine what it would have been like to go out there solo. I see the importance of proper instruction now and am glad I was *lucky* enough to have it at an event where instruction is not a requirement.

There are so many things going on while running open track, it was hard to focus on everything I should have. For example, Jon had to repeatedly remind me to check my gauges on the front straight as I was constantly forgetting to do so. Additionally, it was almost as if I had tunnel vision because when I was coming into turns, I was concentrating soley on braking, turning, accelerating, hitting the apex, and coming through the turn, that I wasn't really even paying attention to the flag workers and ended up relying on my instructors to tell me if there was a concern there - something I need to work on as well. I also developed a habit in the last few sessions of checking my speedometer to brake down to a certain speed when starting my cornering, rather than doing it by "feel". Due to my inexperience, I don't know if that's a good habit or bad habit but I remember doing that - especially at turn #1. There are SO many things I need to work on to be a respectable track driver...

A few things to note about the car.... My Carbotech XP8/XP9 pads worked flawlessly. After 5 sessions the pads still look brand new. I limited braking to basically 110mph and lower, although there were times when I was forced to get on them earlier due to having someone in front of me. I did my best to practice the techniques I learned from Rich of "get on them hard, and then get off them." Thanks to Philip for the recommendation on the pads. My Powerslots seem to have held up - much to the amazement of some of the MN3/S crew. I will inspect them this week for hairline cracks but so far they seem fine and haven't exhibited any signs of warping. The car itself held up like a champ.

The Wisconsin Chapter of 3000GT/Stealth Internation also held a small gathering at Road America during the weekend. There were (if my count is correct) 18 total 3/S vehicles that were there, with 11 of them actually seeing track time. Yep, you heard that right, 11 of us between both days!!! We had people from WI, MN, IA, IL, IN, and MI there. The president of Road America (and W3SI member), George Bruggenthies, also showed up with his 92 RT/TT and hung out with the 3/S gang and crew for quite awhile which was a great treat to talk with him prior to his One Lap event coming up. We took MANY pictures and videos. Right now, the only things I've put on the W3SI website are the following:

Pics:
http://www.w3si.org/images/speedseekers ... /index.htm
http://www.w3si.org/images/speedseekers ... /index.htm

Vids:
http://www.w3si.org/videos/speedseekers-april04

Last... a *BIG* thanks to guys like Rich Merritt, Jon Wieman, Oskar Prsson, Philip Glazatov, Rudy Arias, Bob Forrest, and so many others of you on 3S-racers who have helped educate me (whether you realized it or not) about open-track events along the way and during this fantastic weekend of which I will never forget. I owe you guys.

Jesse Rink
Eagle, WI

_________________

Best in Show - NG07
2010 - 6G74/3.5L E16Gs - 688awhp/679awtq (Race+Meth)
2011 - 6G74/3.5L 68HTAs - 740awhp/762awtq (Race+Meth)
2013 - 6G74/3.5L MTC Stage4 - 908awhp/832awtq (Race+Meth)