What Pagids did you buy? I've used the Pagid Oranges and I like the Hawk Blue compound better both in terms of bite and fade and price, but you can't beat 1/2 off! Ram just bought a set of Yellows and I'm curious to see how the perform next time out. I was killing him in the braking zones running Hawk Blues vs the Oranges.

Here's a little info on the Pagid:

RS 4-4 ORANGE

This compound has a very good fade resistance and a higher average friction value than the RS 4-2. It is rotor friendly with a predictable, non-aggressive friction behavior (stable torque). Fading resistance up to 560°C (1.050°F). It is a very good rear compound for Touring Car applications in combination with RS 14 front pads. It’s main application is Porsche 911 racing. It is used on either Short Track or Long Distance; also for front and rear axles. It is also used on BMW Showroom Stock, all other Touring-Cars and Single- Seater up to F3.

RS 14 BLACK

This is a medium high friction value ceramic type compound with very good modulation, high fade resistance, low heat conductivity, and a good wear rate up to a temperature of 650°C (1.200°F).

It is kind on discs, with visible grooving, but a limitation of hairline cracks.

Applications: NASCAR, CART, F3, Touring cars, GT cars, WSC, Trans Am and Rally.

RS 19 YELLOW

Best compound for endurance racing on the basis of the RS 14. A slight reduction of the friction value improves the modulation. Nevertheless, the friction value is enough for cars without power-assisted brake system and ensures comfortable low effort on the brake pedal. Constant temperatures up to 600°C (1.100°F) are possible. The combination of friction value, fading stability and low wear rates on pads and discs realised with this pad compound is unmatched up to now.

Due to its outstanding wear rate and driveability also used at many sprint races.

Application: All endurance racing cars from group N (Speed-WC, Grand Am Cup) up to GT and Sport-Prototypes.

A multiple winner of Daytona 24h, Le Mans 24h, Sebring 12h, Spa 24 h, Nürburgring 24h, often with no pad change and usually no disc change.

Pete, how's the house hunting going?

 

Pat,
I like the blacks which are similar to the PFC 97s. Can't stop as fast as the 01s but still a decent pad overall. However the 01s cost me 300 or so and these were about 150 so I'll give up a 10nth or two to save some cash

Who's tried the PFC 02s, 03s or 05s?

 

I think I can describe the 03's clearer than I compared the previous pads. My experience with 03's is in an ASA Stock car as a data point. I'm sure compound is the same.

03's have even more bite than 01's, more agrresive throughout the stop. The car I drove had 03's front and 01's rear. The owner likes ALOT of initial bite that's why he switched to the 03's from the 01's.

David

 

Heading to Road Atlanta this weekend with the GA RX-8 guys for a Peachstate PCA event. Does that make sense? haha. Been a long week. Hoping I get some good track time this weekend. Anyone else coming out? Seems like I might of saw a 7 or two on the roster.

 

Back at work early Monday morning. Pretty good weekend even having to overcome some hurdles. It's really hard to have a bad weekend at the track. So here is the rundown...

I leave Friday evening around 5pm to head to Road Atlanta. At some point we stop at Wendy's to get dinner. Coming out of the parking lot, I hit my trailer tongue jack pretty hard which later turned out that it was extremely hard to raise leading me to believe I had bent it. So I get to the hotel around 11:30pm or so and go to sleep shortly after.

Since they are an hour ahead and I still have to go through registration and tech, I get back up at like 4:50am my time to get to the track by 5:30 my time, 6:30am eastern time. Well, unload the car and pull around to tech. Everything is good to go and they are about to give me my tech sticker when the guy says "wait a minute... look at his rotors." Mind you this is a Porsche Club event and my car has 993TT calipers and rotors. The guy says "they have cracks in them." After they talk amongst theirself, I try to explain to them that they get surface cracks in them after the first or second time out, I normally get between 15-20 track days out of them, and these only have 2 on them. The man responds with "look son, I'm a professional." Well, I obviously can't debate this with him so I asked if their was some one else I could speak with. They sent me to the head guy, who was at the registration trailer. I drive over there and he simply tells me he won't overule tech, but he will refund my money(minus a 50% processing fee). Great!! So I'm out fuel money driving up there and back, hotel, and half my track money... all because they don't know about Porsche rotors. I was getting very frustrated by this time and was composing myself and not being rude, but it was pretty obvious that I was pretty upset. So I am driving back to the pits... once again, like a heroine addict trying to find a vein(aka thinking about how I can possibly show these guys their is nothing wrong with my rotors). Well, last ditch effort.

I jack the car up and pull the caliper and rotor off. I take my rotor up to them to show them that the holes actually go into the veins of the rotor and are not through the actual rotor face. This is when one of the other tech guys says to one of the other tech guys "you know, I run these same rotors on my 944 and honestly, mine are worse then these and I'm driving on mine today." So they finally agree to let me drive. *wipes sweat from forehead* Almost didn't get to drive... ALMOST! So, nothing like tearing your car apart first thing in the morning in the dark... but you gotta do what you gotta do.

So I then I get back and meet up with all the Georgia RX-8 Club guys who are great bunch of guys who DRIVE their cars! They basically have the same suspension and brakes that we do, they are just down on power. One of the guys has a supercharged RX-8 that is a beautiful set up that will scream! We all paddocked together and had a great weekend hanging out.

Their are 50 cars in my group... which is ALOT for Road Atlanta but I enjoyed it... it's just more cars to pass . Passing was very limited. It was only in the straights, and in most of them, only half of the straight. They actually had cones set up in the straight and if you passed someone after the cones(once again... in the straight), you would be blackflagged. I was blackflagged the last session on Saturday I was passing a friend of mine that drives a Miata and I guess I wasn't completely past him when we hit the cones. Oh well, they do it for safety reasons and it's their event and their rules... I have no issues following those. I made sure I was more cautious after that and took my driving down a notch.

I did manage to get two traffic free laps this weekend... haha. I'll take however I can get get it. I ran a 1:45 based off the video which I am super stoked about. Last time I was there in August, I think I was running between 1:52-1:55's. The TTA lap record is 1:40 and TTS is 1:35 so I still have some work to do, but I'm getting there.

My last session of the day was cut short due to an issue. As I was coming into turn 6, the car broke loose a small amount. As I was going through Turn 7, the car really broke loose and as I backed off and tried to reel it back in, I know something is not right. I was very lucky as by the time I caught the car, I was actually on the gators. It felt like a corded tire or possibly a flat. I started to hear a thumpthump thumpthump as I was gently going down the back straight. I pitt in and go to the paddock. As I'm driving through the paddock, My steering is still nice and tight and nothing seems out of the ordinary. I pull into my spot and look at my tires... all are still inflated and, as best as I could tell, none of them are corded or flat spotted. I procede to look at my suspension and I can see anything out of whack or hanging down. I decide not to push my luck(since it is the last session of the day) and call it a weekend. I'll go home and find the issue and let the car live to drive another weekend in one piece

All is well that ends well.

I'll have some pictures and video's up here before too long.

 

Edit: It's not letting me link them so I'll host them and post them later.

A couple in the meantime:

 

Here's a pretty good quality video:
http://www.vimeo.com/7241267

Here's one of me getting a little open track and running a 1:45 which is my personal best so far at Road Atlanta:
http://www.vimeo.com/7280946

 

Heading to Road Atlanta this weekend. Looks like they'll be a few FD's out there. Jeremy will be there. Charlie from MazCare will be out there with his his LSX FD monster. Anyone else coming?

 

If I bring a helmet up can I ride for a few laps?

 

Hell yes you can! Be forewarned though, I won't be responsible for what you do/buy the following week Helmets have to be a SA2000 or higher. If you don't have one, don't worry about it, we'll find one as there will be plenty of my RX8 track buddies there as well.

Brent

 

so did you find out what was making your car break loose in the corners?

 

I have went through the suspension probably 3 times(to include tonight) and I don't see anything wrong. I AutoX'd it this past weekend, which should push the suspension harder than I do on the track, and the problem never presented itself. I did notice that my coilover on that side had somehow adjusted itself to full soft, but that wouldn't cause the issue by itself. I think maybe that and I ran into some oil or coolant or something. I did hear a few people say it was slick at that turn. I think I might of been just hearing tires when I slowed down.

How's your car doing? What's the plan?

 

The plan is to wait until I have enough money to rebuild the engine and turbo. I keep myself on a very tight budget, where I give myself $200 a month to save for Rx-7 related goods and services. So it will be late summer before I'm back on track, but i should have enough NASA volunteer points by that time to get a couple track weekends for free. Thats the only silver lining on this black cloud. Hopefully you can hit NASA at Mid-Ohio this year, I think you'll love that track.

 

Had a great time at Road Atlanta. I highly HIGHLY recommend the MVP Track Time organization. To start out, they gave out some great door prizes at the driver's meeting. They gave away a $100 gift certificate from one of the sponsors, a FREE set of Bridgestone tires, and they gave me a FREE track day! They are a very laid back, safe organization that puts confidence in driver's and it shows. We also had very good driver's and zero incidents all weekend(to include a soaked track all day Sunday) until the last 10 minutes on Sunday! A BMW Z3 hit somewhere. He was in the novice group and I really hated to see it happen. My girlfriend rode a couple of sessions and loved every minute of it as always. I also ran into a buddy of mine from college who drove in the TDICup last year and took him for a ride. Jeremy(PureMedia or close to that on the forum) came out on Sunday and had some fun as well. It literally rained all day though.

I had a lap time goal in mind for this weekend, but my new tires didn't come in time so I had to nurse my V710's one more weekend(great tires by the way). Almost... right Fritz? I still managed to scrub some more time off and look forward to meeting my goal come December.

Here's a the first boring track video
http://www.vimeo.com/7747840

 

Here's a 1:43 lap on worn out Kumho's:
http://www.vimeo.com/7789186

My goal for Dec. if I get new tires is going to be to break into the 1:30's... so 1:39.999999

 

Heh the P in MVP must be for "Porsche" huh? Nice representing the 7, they never stood a chance :P Looks like you've gotta secure that wide angle lens on a little better Jealous you're still making events and I'm sitting the rest of the year out. New motor sitting in garage now though!

 

haha... there were alot of Porsche's out there! There was alot of really nice cars there. A guy I know had his 800hp Ford GT out there, a Ferrari or two, a ZR1, etc, etc, etc. Charlie from Mazcare also had his LS2 FD monster out there with Mike Skeen coaching/driving it. Really fun event. I can't say enough good things about MVP(and I've ran with ALOT or organizations).

Yeah, I sling the lense off every session in the same spot...10a. I remedied the problem by the end of the day with a little racer tape I'll also reduced the resolution from 1080p to 720p(after reading an old thread from you and digdug I believe) and it turned out much better.

I look forward to getting out on the track with you next year! You doing any VIR events before the Mazda Driver's in June? I think I may try to hit the NASA event there early in the year.

 

Looks like I'm going to manage to sneak one last event in on what has been a very sparse year. Anyone else going going to be at VIR on Monday for the "Tryptophan Recovery Plan" event on the full course?

-b

 

Yea I always tape the lens on

I don't know what my schedule looks like for next year yet. Depends on where/how many LeMons races I'm going to (they doubled the number of venues for next year). I will definitely try to make the Mazdadriver's VIR again, that was a great event. I usually do a lot of Summit Point events since it's only 1 hr from me. I also want to try NJMP one of these days.

 

Well, Bill, glad to see that you made it back from your business trip. Now, how's about you do a little something to address the forum member thats still waiting for his spoiler and S5 tails? He has sent you several PM's and emails, and even opened a paypal dispute, and you havent even answered him yet. I know you have been on the forum so I know you would have seen the PMs by now. Please address this ASAP, thank you.

 

At Almost Racing we prefer used up, hard as rock tires to provide us with a car control clinic at no cost

 

haha... I'm hoping these Ho ho's work out for me this weekend.

Last event of the year for me at Road Atlanta this weekend. I'll be there hanging out with all the RX-8 guys.

 

Great way to end the year! The NASA event was awesome! It was pretty cold, but it didn't rain or snow on us so that was a huge plus. Plus I was hanging out with the GA RX-8 guys and one of them brought his RV and what we call the "dome of warmth" aka a easy up with all of it's sides on and taped up with a big propane heater inside of it. He also made all kinds of good food all weekend long. I ate better there than I do normally

I picked up some Hoosier Koni Challenge slicks from a guy there and was able to get them mounted so I could use them for the last session on Saturday. Really nice tire, they are comparable to an R6. They are a little harder of a compound so they don't have quite as much grip, but they will last longer. I ran the 275/35/18 on all four corners and had no rubbing issues whatsoever. This is on my 18x10 CCW's with 7.5 backspacing. My fenders are also not rolled.

Time on track was great! Of course, I never had my camera on for the good stuff. I pushed a Ford GT race car around the track for about a lap before he finally let me pass. I'm sure the car was no where near being driven at it's limit though. I also ran TTS on Sunday afternoon. The first session I had to grid at the back, so I was in traffic literally the whole time. I finally got 1 clean lap on the very last lap. Here's the video, you'll want to skip the first 3 minutes of it as it is just the warm up lap:

http://vimeo.com/8048508

So I had a decent qualify time of 1:41.5 or so. That was good enough to get me put on the second spot on the grid for the next session. I had a goal this weekend to break into the 1:3X's and knew this would be the session to do it. I missed it by .31 seconds. I ran a 1:40.3. I actually ran that time a few laps. I'm still happy with it, but would of liked to made my goal as I don't know how much track time this car will see next year since my yellow car will be taking over as the primary. Here is that session, skip the first 2-3 minutes of it as well as it's the warm up lap unless you just like to see people warming up tires

http://vimeo.com/8034361

That's it for the year!! It's been a really good one. Thanks to all my fellow track rats for all the good times this year and I look forward to seeing you all back out there next year. 2010 thread coming soon! I'll also have some pictures and prob. one more video later this week.

Brent

 

Nice runs. What's the deal with that silver... Maxima? That thing was hauling. I'm not qualified to give you any advice but it does looks like from watching the video you may be able to pick up the.3 seconds you need on the long straight. Right before it transitions to downhill when you're just about at redline, it looks like you lift a for a second or two before you start braking (just going by the tach in the video). Again, I'm on a totally lower level than you and I've never even driven there so maybe you're doing it on purpose to settle the car before entering the downhill, but I'm thinking if you kept in the throttle just a hair longer and went right into the brakes to eliminate that dead zone I bet you could find the time you wanted.

edit: n/m, I just saw (heard) a lap in the second video when you're really going for it the brakes are locking up early on the downhill.

 

Matthew, I appreciate the pointer. I think you are right. I prob. could stay in the gas a little longer, but my brakes weren't feeling as good as the normally do, and I don't have the ***** yet as it does get a little squirly. I have all kinds of excuses It's what we do at Almost Racing. "I almost had a 1:39 but (insert excuse here)". It's the equivalent that almost caught the big one but it just barely got away.