I just wanted to share some experiences with how my Evo X faired at the May 24/25th HPDE event down at Watkins Glen earlier this week. I was coming down off a high placing well at the One Lap event and wanted to see what the car could do at my home track by pushing it a bit harder without breaking anything. Well at the end of my first video I found the one weakness the car might have and did a small off track detour but it wasn't anything too major. Luckily they had just revamped Watkins Glen for safety and areas that were gravel traps were now paved over with improved safety walls set in place in case the paved run off areas weren't enough to recover.

It seems that while the threshold braking is amazing with the Girodisc 2 piece front rotors and Rabyestos ST-43 pads, even the Yokohama AD08 have their limits for traction when on the binders hard. At Watkins Glen there seems to be numerous braking zones that are downhill, and once the ABS engages fully, it really doesn't slow the car down nearly as well when compared to threshold braking where the ABS is just about to kick in. What caught me off guard at times was when I would get a late pass point bye in the black (advanced) run group, most of the cars weren't lifting as we approached the turn so being stuck passing offline meant I had to extend my braking zone into the apex of the turn, make corrections at the apex based on how early I entered, and then power out with relative safety if I did it right.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Watkins_Glen_International_Circuit_Map.png/800px-Watkins_Glen_International_Circuit_Map.png

When I really stomped on the brakes and got full ABS to kick in, the car became very greasy and didn't want to rotate very well at all when at the limits. I had the ASC turned off one touch which meant at least the power was not being cut, but the ABS were supposed to still be there to assist in steering the car to where I had the wheel pointed which didn't always seem to be the case. It seemed that if the system was overwhelmed it would just understeer and kick in antilocks so much that I likely had to let off the brakes, correct the angle, and then get on them again in order to make it work. I probably could have also gotten on the power and power drifted the car around the turns when overcooked but figured it should work with using braking control as well. I experimented with turning the ASC off for 5 second push so that the ABS assist for turning was off as well but never got into a situation where I could definitively say it made the difference.

Last year I vividly remembered that the Porsche GT3's were about equal on the track for power, braking, and handling where as a certain black 2007 Z06 driven by a nice guy named David was tearing up the track when he had race rubber and most everyone else was on steet tires. Well this year with the Coilovers, stickier street tires, and possibly slightly better driving I noticed a change. While the power on the straights was still similar since I detuned the car to around 500 crank hp at 25 psi, I could outbrake those GT3's and easily turn inside of them in the corners now. The Z06 that I attempted to pace last year which warped my brakes after 1 lap overdriving the car was now within sight for a couple laps, and by the last session of the 2nd day I was able to keep pace doing 2:15 laps and the car seemed to hold up fine without any worries. After talking it seems that when he gets a clean lap he can lap around 2:10 or slightly better so my next goal will be to tweak a few things to see if I can pull that pace off on a street tire setup through increased reliable power (~650 crank HP goal), wider street tires (295mm?), and possibly a few suspension changes.

Overall the BC Racing ER series coilovers performed quite well and I increased the stiffness of my shocks bound (compression) and rebound to a stiffer 20 (of 30) setting all around with a few tweaks after that. Overall the car had minimal tire rollover on those settings with the -2.5* front and -1.5* rear camber settings and the stiffer shock setup. Still you could really toss the car around and not have any worries that the car would suddely experience snap oversteer, and besides the ABS taking over control at times, the car turned in amazingly well for 20+ minutes of track time and allowed accurate vehicle placement without having to muscle the car. As I pushed the limits a bit more on the 2nd day, I started learning the technique to get more bite out of the tires where you release the wheel and turn in again. The only places the car felt a bit dangerous was up the esses so I was still letting off slightly and boosting 20 psi until the car felt more settled before powering up to the back straight where I was reaching 145-150mph before getting on the binders at the 400 ft mark leading into the bus stop.

The only major issue I had was fuel starvation, and with the new found handling and more aggressive cornering it turns out that a 2nd session is not possible without topping off the tank since the left hand exit from the off camber turn 9 caused fuel starvation I would rather not experience again. Luckily I brought my 5 gallon fuel tank and just refilled that when making my mid day refueling trip in town. Plans are to get a fuel surge tank setup in place along with a 400 LPH fuel pump matched to the Deatschwerks 1500cc injectors I have yet to install. Basically at 7 MPG I go through about 1 gallon of fuel every two laps at Watkins Glen long course (3.4 miles) and that means after 12 laps (~27 minutes) the car is approaching half a tank of fuel.

I've got about 50 minutes of in car video footage from the various sessions over the 2 day HPDE and tried to list a brief summary under each video. The first one has the most traffic where I must have passed over 20 cars during the entire session and the last video shows that Z06 on race rubber that I'm keeping pace with just barely. So go to full screen mode and turn up the sound because it's "almost" as good as being there yourself.

You'll have to double click the videos to enter youtube in order to see the full descriptions.

Day 1 - Session 3 - (Heavy Traffic, passing 15 cars in this 10 min clip)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-kVG3NztB8

Day 1 - Session 4 -(Passing Steve’s near stock Evo X on back stretch, caught silver Z06)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GQbZdPC8qY

Day 2 - Session 1 - (Late Passing Exercise with Steve at start, later doing some 2:16 laps)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28f7q132Uaw

Day 2 - Session 2 - (4 wheel drifts down the chute and late passing practice)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErUs2Nqgp8Q

Day 2 - Session 3 - (Pacing Black Z06 through traffic with around 2:15 lap times)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbstHBTi5ko

Nice run, great driving as well.

Does everyone who owns a Porsche drive so slow, or do you just rock the cock?

I ask seriously, as my fast driving is limited primarily to school zones at 2:45PM on a school day.

nice driving

Thanks for the props guys!

Does everyone who owns a Porsche drive so slow, or do you just rock the cock?

I ask seriously, as my fast driving is limited primarily to school zones at 2:45PM on a school day.

In general the Porsche drivers aren't as fast through the corners since they aren't on the edge of traction as much as I can be safely. AWD FTW! Most of them are hesitant to risk sending the car to an early demise but it was the Black (advanced) run group so most of them had decent experience under their belt (10-20 + track days in general).

The GT3's were pretty fast in the straights as were the Z06's and the Nissan GTR of course, likely hitting 145-155 on the back straight depending on mods. Even that M3 at the end of the last video is driven by a State Trooper in NYS and he had it up to 140 ish and was hard to pass leading into turn 5 bus stop.

With a good coilover suspension, good street tires, and decent horsepower the Evo X platform is pretty nasty though, and even with ~2:15 laps I was out handling, out braking, and at least matching the speed of those faster cars in the straights which meant evetually they had to give me a point bye when I caught them. I would consider myself a decent driver but there is always more to learn, as I'm sure Leh Keen could knock 3-5 seconds off a lap just jumping in my car. That Z06 on race rubber was pulling me on the straights and had an edge in the corners of course, where I seemed to gain a bit back was threshold braking and the Girodisc rotors let me get away with murder assuming ABS didn't engage. :thumbup:

SICK!!!

What gauge mount are you using? Perrin? Do you get annoyed by it blocking your speedo?

What gauge mount are you using? Perrin? Do you get annoyed by it blocking your speedo?

It's actually just using that plastic velcro stuff that has very little flex. I wanted as little extra height from the mounting setup as possible and it only blocks 2000 rpm or lower on the left side where the boost gauge is and on the right side the wideband doesn't block any of the speedo when viewed from the driver's seat.

very composed driving, im impressed

good stuff, nice write up:+1:

Great Post! That looks like a very interesting track to drive on.

Thanks guys, The Evo X is so easy to adapt to, even a caveman can do it! :thumbup:

Steve uploaded some more pictures from the event here:

http://onelap.rochesterdsm.org/2010/...de-photoshoot/ (http://onelap.rochesterdsm.org/2010/06/watkins-glen-spring-de-photoshoot/)

Shows some cool angles of the cars on the track during a track walk where we could see the camber and elevation changes in the turns up close. I also uploaded a few professional shots that I got from the event in the original article I wrote.

http://onelap.rochesterdsm.org/2010/05/watkins-glen-may-2010-hpde-with-niagara-pca/

I was at the Six Hours of the Glen Rolex Sports Car Series race last weekend. It was very interesting to see the lines the prototype cars took through some of the corners, compared to the lines I used in the Evo at an HPDE event. Most noticeable was the toe of the boot (turn 7) - they turned in MUCH earlier. Same for turn 1. I guess when they have so much more grip they can get a faster line through those corners with an early turn in. The GT cars took pretty much the same line I took in the Evo.

It was very cool to see how professionals do it, in real race cars, compared to an amateur like me in an Evo!

Just think that could be you out there one day, even if it is just for fun..

very composed driving, im impressed


I concur

Sweet!!

Looks like you had a lot of fun! Glad we could help.

...did you get those 1500cc's installed yet! :)

Looks like you had a lot of fun! Glad we could help.

...did you get those 1500cc's installed yet! :)

Priorities at work have hit hard the last month, and I've been fixing smaller items that have cropped up since the spring time fun (and abuse) at the tracks. I had to get one of my wheels repaired so I'm running around on winter wheels/tires right now and the O2 DP has to come off to get a warped flange fixed. Once those 2 things are done by early next week I plan on dropping the 1500cc injectors in and playing.

:innocent:

I hear you about it being a crazy summer. :) I haven't driven my race car since the end of last season...but I have been bumming drives from friends. Hopefully the CRX will be back on the track again soon...but for now, it's interesting getting to drive a wide variety of cars.

Good luck with the next couple of weeks.