Tire problem solved.
Left to right. 245, 265, 275.
The RE71Rs have a little more grip than the Sumitomo tires do.
Tire problem solved.
Left to right. 245, 265, 275.
The RE71Rs have a little more grip than the Sumitomo tires do.
Autocross was Saturday. It was AWESOME!!!
The car was simply phenomenal. There were 7 drivers in STU for the event, and my co-driver and I managed to lock up 1st and 2nd. And since I'm a borderline driver, my co driver beat me in my own car.
This was the fasted run of the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4zF2fbYnNc&feature=youtu.be
In the aero thread I said I was going to replace the front under tray. So I did.
Z Speed makes a quite nice one. It does a outstanding job of supporting the front bumper. It even has a nice little door so oil changes can be completed without removing it.
It's a nice change of pace to own a car that people actually make parts for.
In reply to Toyman01 :
I take it that the "fold" where the oil drag door is, is "upward"... but are the flat "z-speed" area even with the "triangle slit" area?
also, I wonder if you're missing "tire deflectors" in the outer portions of the old undertray?
In reply to sleepyhead :
The front and back are level. The center is kicked up right behind Z Speed to reach the bottom radiator support.
The outer portions in front of the tires are part of the fender liner and are level with and fastened to the under tray.
And 3 months later I realize that Infiniti is spelled with a i not a y. Oh well.
Spent the weekend at a autocross. The G35 did reasonably well. 2nd in class out of 6. I got beat by a 07 350Z that was about 2 seconds faster than I was. Faster car and a faster driver to boot.
I did shoot some video though.
TrackAddict. Shot with my phone.
And for the first time, the Soloshot.
My loving wife did manage to break the car though. She coned a fun run and busted the washer bottle in the front fender.
Fun times.
One more autocross in the books. Once again, 2nd place. I managed to throw this one away myself by coning away my best run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seozBx-ki54&feature=youtu.be
This was a tiny course on a tiny lot. Surprisingly, it was a lot of fun to drive. I got beat out by a Evo X. We swapped places back and forth every run. That always makes for a fun event. If I hadn't coned my final run I would have had him by .3.
The G has been sitting in the shop mostly ignored for the past couple of months. My lovely wife gave me a Hotchkis front bar for Christmas this year and today was the day to get it installed. The first event is next weekend. While the lift was set up, I went ahead and installed the track pads and rotors.
It has done a couple of road trips and apparently I have an alignment issue. After the wheel change I took some camber out of the rear. I checked the toe on the front but never checked it on the rear. The plan was to send it in and get it aligned. I forgot. One tire destroyed. Whoops.
Two tires ordered (ouch), and it will be going in the shop this weeks for an alignment.
The pads I bought are Power Stop Track Day Pads. The reviews I've read have been positive. Since they are half the price of top shelf stuff I thought I would give them a try. First impressions after bedding them in are very positive. Initial bite is spectacular. They are going to be noisy though. I had planned to bleed them today as well but found a snapped off bleeder. I will get a plan and parts together to fix that before I bleed the system.
The front bar seems to help a good bit as well. Hard to test that on the street without the front shocks turned up. We will see how it does next weekend.
The G35 is going to do it's first time trial this weekend. My first as well. I'm running at Carolina Motorsports Park. I've run a lot of laps on that track in Lemons races, but this will be a first in a car that handles fairly well and is quick. Should be fun.
All washed up and ready to roll.
I wanted/needed a tow point on the car so I ordered the factory tow hook. Unfortunately the tow hook cover was apparently missing when the car was last painted. Instead of replacing the cover, the knuckle head that painted the car glued a piece of plastic over the back of the hole and filled it with Bondo. I didn't realize this until I'd already popped the glue and bondo loose. Not sure how I'm going to fix that mess. It might be bumper cover time. It's picked up some damage from murdering cones.
Best of luck at the track this weekend. CMP is fun, you already know that, but it should be cool to get nice clean laps in a quick car.
does Lemons run the kink? I thought they only did half the track?
In reply to sleepyhead :
The first event was half track with a chicane in the front straight.
The second event was half track, no chicane.
By the third event we were running full track. I've run 7 of them. That was 5+ years ago though. I'll need to refresh my memory.
The Lemons Civic will take the kink flat out if you're brave enough. That's a touch over 100 mph. Fun.
I got tapped going into it one event and went spinning through the weeds at 100 mph. Not so much fun.
I seriously doubt the G35 will take it flat out.
This weekend is going to be about 8/10. I'm not looking to win anything and I really don't want to have to have AAA bring the car home.
Run_Away said:Nice, rear wheel bearings are pretty common.
Yes, they are. Virtually all cars have them so I believe that qualifies them as being pretty common... 
Managed a 1st in class out of two. The other being a CTSV wagon.
hooray driver mod! nice job!
Great job at the Time Trial! I'm headed to Roebling Road next weekend for an HPDE with Just Track It. I'm in an 03 350Z so we're sharing a lot of hardware under the metal. What'd you think of those new tire sizes during your TT event? Are you running a square wheel size for the fronts and rears?
In reply to Xceler8x :
I'm running a square setup. 275/35-18 RE71Rs on 18X9 Motegi Traklite wheels. I was pretty happy with that setup. On a autocross setup, I think it could use more rear tire, but on track it had plenty of grip just about everywhere. Probably means I need to work on my driving at autocross.
How about a weekend wrap up.
Other than a few things it was a pretty good weekend.
Notable, we didn't get home until late last night due to the SCR-SCCA timing van dying on the side of I-26 an hour out of town. I tracked the problem down to a fuel issue. Probably the pump. We called for a tow and waited with the truck for a little over an hour.
The event went off fairly well. It was the first time SCR has attempted to combined a Time Trial with a Club Race. It did not go off without a hitch but it did happen and for a first attempt, it turned out fairly well. Main issue was a club race that oiled down most of the back half of the track from turn 9 all the way through the Kink to turn 11. That cost an hour of cleanup which shot a already tight schedule to hell. Unfortunately the Time Trial guys got the suck up most of that by losing an afternoon session and combining the intermediate and advance groups. The Time Trial guys felt pretty crapped on. I don't necessarily thing that was the best way to handle things, but that's what the stewards decided to do. I personally think there was some politics involved but that might just be me.
The car was damn near perfect.
The brakes were brilliant until the last session. I was pushing harder than I had previously and got them pretty hot. They never faded but at that point, I think I got some uneven transfer from the pads to the rotors and now they are surging like crazy. I can probably solve that problem in the future with some brake cooling ducts. That's on the list to do before the Monster Memorial Time Trial in May.
The engine was flawless. It used 2/3 of a quart of oil in the first session on Saturday and after that didn't use any more. I guess the Italian tune up is a thing. Just about every engine I've ever owned starts giving up as the RPMs climb. Not this one, it pulls like a freight train all the way to the rev-limiter. I managed to bounce off of it more than once.
The rear shocks will definitely need to be changed before the next event. The fronts I replaced with Koni Yellows. The backs were working good enough for autocross. Not so much as speeds climbed. The Kink in particular would unsettle the rear of the car at the worst possible time. Several times things got a little twitchy. 95 mph was the best I could do through it, 90 was much more comfortable.
As mentioned above, the tire and wheel package was just about perfect. Maybe some more rear tire would help with the rear, but I'm pretty sure that was all shocks, or the lack of.
Now for video. This was my last session. I'm pretty sure I need to work on my line, but it was a fun time. My best lap was a 1:57.9. Top speed right at 110 mph. Good enough for 1st place in class. At least until some serious contenders show up.
Any updates? That last track video has me inspired
The last track event was the TT National Tour in May at Carolina Motorsports Park and ended up 5th in class. It was mostly my fault. I wanted to get "one more event," out of the tires and brakes and it probably cost me 10+ seconds a lap and a couple of spots. By Saturday afternoon I was scrounging through my used tire pile to get something on the back with a little life left in it. Both rears looked a little bare.
The good news is I'm pretty happy with the alignment.
I've about quit autocrossing it. There isn't anyone to play with and if I'm going to burn up $1000 in tires I'll take it to the track. My youngest son wants to play with the Abomination so I'll probably haul it around and play pit crew for him for the autocross season.
The future for the G holds more track events. I'm hoping to run a TT a NCCAR in November, and I'll run both TTs at CMP in the spring. From there I'll have to see what the rest of the schedule looks like for 2020.
It's been a while since I updated this.
At the moment the car is in pieces with the entire front end pulled off of it to add a engine oil cooler and upgrade the headlights to something that actually puts out light.
These car apparently cook the engine oil on track. And looking at the condition of the oil after the last TT, I would believe it. What was new oil the Thursday before the event was obviously well abused by Sunday afternoon. That's not good so a oil cooler was a requirement unless I wanted to wipe out the engine. After looking at the very expensive kits designed for the car, I went with a generic Derale kit instead. It was less than half the price and came with a thermostatically controlled fan as well as a thermostatic bypass. It should do a good job of keeping things cool. I had to order some 90 degree fitting to finish the install so it's not quite done yet.
While waiting for the oil fittings, I got started on the headlights. The car came with some Chinese aftermarket headlights that I have hated since I bought the car. They throw a lot of light, but they throw it everywhere instead of down the road where you need it. They were also 5000K-6000K bulbs that make everything harder to see IMHO. Everything on the market is the same Chinese crap I already had and after pricing OEM stuff at $760 per side, I decided to build my own.
The lights in the car used a 60mm projector for low beam and a 90mm reflector for the high beam. A little digging showed Hella sells a 60mm low beam projector and a 90mm high beam reflector, so I ordered a couple of each. I prefer the color of halogens so that's what I ordered.
Low beam module:
High beam module.
Since the wife was out of town for a week, I set the oven to 260 degrees and baked the light assemblies long enough to soften the glue and pull the lenses off of them. No pictures of that, sorry. The lights mount in the bottom of the assembly on adjusters. Since I needed to keep the adjusters, I made adapters to mount the Hella units in the existing base. I started to 3D print them, but I was afraid the heat may melt them down so I used aluminum instead.
High beam adapter.
And mounted.
And the low beam setup.
It took a little modification to get the middle housing to fit, but it turned out decent.
That's as far as I made it today. I won't tell you how many times I made those adapters before I got it right. There is still some tweaking and adjusting to do before everything is fastened back together, but they are coming along.
More to come as it happens.
Great thread.
Have to to say, its astounding seeing one of these not beat to absolute piss. Quite handsome cars
Headlight upgrades are super cool. Excited for output pictures!
Did you happen to take any before shots?
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