July 1 was a great day to be at the track! Weather was good lots of neat cars on the track, but only one other RX-7 (club member) and 2 RX-8's! All had a great time, there was even a real Trans-AM series car there testing and it was hump'in fast! We timed him around 1:12 on pro track (only running 2 or 3 laps at at time), and right now the fastest cars in the regional series are about 1:13. We confirmed our suspicion about the stock oil cooler, it wont give me enough cooling to run at Shannonville, so I have to get a competition cooler from either Mazdaspeed or Speed Source. Anyway hope to see more of you at the track!

 

hey al, sounds like u had some fun there, i wish i could have joined u but i got a flat in of the the ra1's 2 days prior... just my luck. lol

 

Your not using the RA1's on the street are you???????????????

 

Hmmm...

 

lol i put them on the monday because i wanted to see how they drove, noticed one was deflating everynight for 2 days straight, found a hole...

 

Why don't you run two stock oil coolers in series?

 

I figure I will just buy the right cooler. 2 stock coolers takes up a lot of space and would require more plumbing of lines etc. Also another OEM cooler is as much as a Mazdapeed or SpeedSource competition cooler, I dont think I would put in a used cooler unless it was like one im pulling out (brand new, run 5 times).

 

Cool stuff. I can't believe a TA car was there! I can't even imagine being on track with one of those monsters. Was it a proper Trans Am car or was it a GTA or GT1? (I think I have the right name of the two new classes of cars that are competing in the series).

Who was the other 7? Were the 8 people from the RX-8 Club or anything like that?

 

Just to help out a bit. If you are going to run 2 stock FC oil coolers they need to be in parallel. If you run them in series there will be too much restriction and pressure drop.

The car that was out lapping with Al was Blais Csidas's car. It is a legal Trans Am car that runs local Trans Am races, American GT races and in the Ontario Challenge Cup Races in GT1. At Shannonville the speed differential is pretty big, at Mosport it is enormous. These cars are doing about 170 mph going into turn 8 and some cars are struggling to clear 110 mph. It is not fun to drive one of these cars in a mixed grid race.

When I run the Cobra R out west, I am touching 180 mph and having to weave in and out of cars that are running at 110 mph. Just one touch and parts will be scattered everywhere.

The biggest issue is that a lot of cars at lapping days and in mixed grid races are being driven erratically. As the driver of the faster car you have to commit to a line going through a corner, just to make it out the other side, as these slower cars wander all over there is always a chance of pounding them.

Not a ton of fun.

 

I just talked with Blaise, and the car is running GT1. He told me the GT1 cars have to weigh a bit more, but are allowed to run 358 cu.in. motors which is why he is in that class. They ARE going to run at the Indy this weekend, so thats pretty cool. His fast lap at Shannonville pro track is 1:09, and that was on 3 year old tires!!!!!!!!!!! How cool is that????!!!!! My best lap is 1:16 so I guess I need a little more car!

 

Ridicilous RX7....The RX8's were doing just fine on street tires!

After seeing all those cars at the Dyno day, I thought there'd be a couple of RX7's at the track. 01Racing won the prize for the most unique exhaust sound at the track...although I think the blue BMW was louder.

The Trans AM Vette was amazing...he would blow by 4 or 5 otherwise fast cars on the back straight like he wasn't even trying.

I've got an SVT event Aug 6-7 at Shannonville (Mazda...Ford family product). Anyone else with track days please post.

 

Was your car setup for Shannonville that weekend? Please don't take this the wrong way, but it really didn't seem that fast. It seemed to be making good power in the straights, but kinda slow in the corners...

 

ya but they are on new tires... i bought my car with rly shitty 5 year old tires and havnt had a chance to change. trust me i tried with the tires on shannonville and mosport ddt.

 

RREWQ which car were you driving at the track? When we are testing we dont usually run as hard as we can and take a chance of throwing away the car. There didnt seem to many other cars there that could out corner us (and stay on the track, there were a couple of kamakazi's that could stay with us and run off on each corner). Our main goal was to see if we coiuld keep keep the oil temp down running at a 20 minute pace which is around 1:17 - 1:18 depending on what the competition is doing. We have the ability to push and probably run 1:15.5, but that would break me out of GTB. Our car is not set up for Shannonville gearing and spring rate wise, however we only run there 2 times a year, so its not worth changing everything. In the last couple of years our car is one of the quickest production based "stock engined" (no engine swap to larger displacement) that we have seen out there. As far as maximum cornering speed, if someone is not catching you, why drive harder??

 

01, yeah I totally realize that you were just out there testing and not running 10/10ths. That's why I was curious to see if you were tweaking your suspension setup or something. I didn't drive my car that day (it's still up on blocks!) but I was there taking pictures and went out for one quick session in the silver RSX. I was just suprised that street cars were able to hang with you. Anyways, dunno if you saw the thread or not but the last few pics should be of your car...

https://www.rx7club.com/canadian-forum-42/pics-shannonville-july-1st-440059/

 

RREWQ...what...no pictures of the only S4 at the event...they're stills so it doesn't show how fast I wasn't going.

Rid RX7 ...Tires are one of those expensive consumables...ran a set of Goodyear (not usually my favourat brand) F1-GS-D3's at Mosport a few weeks ago on a wet track. and then one session in the dry. They were better than new RA1's in the wet and more than adequate in the dry....my $0.02 if your interested in a multi purpose tire.

 

ya i think i should have bought some falkens or kuhmos and not shaven...

 

This is the only shot I have that might potentially have you in it... I think that's you behind the porsche?

 

rrewq, like I said before the only time the street cars are able to "hang with us is when we let them, the white integra was more of a race car than my car! Again the guy was a nut bar and the 1st time I let him by and followed him he was all over the ice. My video shows him running off 4 of 10 turns, so I figured it was safer to infront of him rather than behind him. The only other car other than the trans-am car that tried to keep up when I was running a decent pace was the BMW M5 and he almost crashed on the front straight before he gave up. I dont know iof you realize how UNmodified the suspension if the 01 car is. Most of the cars there had more trick stuff than I do. Jim's 87 Turbo has basically the same suspension I do, Bilstein motorsports struts with coil overs. My bushings are all rubber and stock sway bars with Mazdacomp bushings. One thing remember about racing and turning is the old adage "slow in means fast out"

 

As far as R compound tires go, shaved tires will last way longer and stick way better on a dry track. The whole thing with R compound tires is DONT DRIVE THEM ON THE STREET!!!!! Shaved tires are not meant for use on a rain soaked track, thats why we have specific full tread rain tires.

 

Well, add a cat and street tires and that ITR is street legal! I consider that car a street car in the sense that it has full body, glass, AC and stereo! Plus it is daily driven and has 1 motor for the season.

I was just surprised you weren't able to get away from him, thats all, especially since you have video proving he was not a good driver...

I never knew what you had for your suspension setup, hence my questions as to whether or not you were testing new settings. I just observered that you were not particularly fast in the corners...