In reply to captainawesome :
Once configured correctly oil temp display is working great! P3 Cars technical support is awesome as well.
This was taken shortly after startup. I only have a couple cross-town drives with this display working, but it seems to warm to 120-130 quickly (3-4 minutes) then creep up to 190-some over the next ten minutes, and then stays between 190-200 in urban driving. We will see what happens when driving in anger on a day warmer than mid-40's outside.
In reply to captainawesome :
Oh yeah, no oil pressure for the twins through OBD. You could add a sensor and wire it into one of the spare inputs.
Functions I have through the diagnostic port, I haven't added any extra inputs yet:
Oil Temp
Throttle angle
AFR
0-60 timer
Boost/Vacuum
Coolant Temp
Vehicle Speed
Battery Voltage
RPM-with configurable shift light
IAT
EGT
Ignition timing
It also logs peak values for the above parameters, reads trouble codes, and can be tied to the instrument panel dimmer, which I intend to do.
I bought the V3 OBD2...very pleased so far. I started down this road with my old car, and getting this level of instrumentation and aesthetic integration on my old AE86 would have been nearly impossible and cost at least a couple grand, probably more. 
Did a little work on the FR-S before a big trackcross/trackday triple-header weekend at ORP in just under two weeks.
I got the galled wheel stud out and replaced stud and lugnut. Looking at the others makes me think I might bump my occasional thoughts of new extended studs with open lugnuts from the maybe-someday list to let's-plan-for-it list.
Minimum thickness on stock rotors is 22mm and mine show a little wear, but measure 23.8mm-23.9mm.
Let's inspect the sports/circuit brake pads. Yup, plenty of meat left, but wait...uh...looks like a fair number of tiny crevices in the surface of the pad. 
The brakes have been working fine, excluding the usual streetable track pad quirks of frequent squealing and dusting. Pads are Winmax W3 with a 'normal temp' of 1112 degrees, or the most track-worthy pad they offer that isn't terrible when cold.
Brakes are nothing to take chances on, but I'm alternating between thinking I must replace them, and thinking I'll leave them in, but take extra pads, fluid, all the brake service tools, and take it a bit easier on the brakes, and be prepared to swap pads if needed. I've got three trackdays and a couple thousand street miles on these pads so far, and it has been quite a while since I looked at the face of the pads...I've usually checked the thickness from the side.
Thoughts and feedback welcome.
I also have been working on revising the passenger seat occupancy sensor wiring to try and eliminate the awkward interference with the seat bracket. I've had zero luck finding a Denso five-pin connector to match the two plus three inline proprietary (?) setup on the stock module, so I bought a complete module on eBay with intensions of hacking it apart into a connector.
Hacksaw and Dremel both employed to see what is inside!
I don't need any of the gizmos or circuitry, just the connector. I trim a bit, examine, trim more, rinse, and repeat.
My boss gratefully offered his drawer full of de-soldering tools (!!! my mind was blown, I never knew there was anything beyond melting the solder with an iron and yanking apart!)
I got the joints de-soldered and was left with this:
Quite a bit of judicious trimming, et voila:
A bit more trimming, plus some careful bending with my little pliers.
I'm betting I can solder and shrink wrap some wire leads onto those pins, which will become a long flexy harness. The connector in my hand will plug into the seat occupant sensor, and the wires length plus slim connector profile will allow the full range of seat adjustment fore and aft. The wires will run into my intact original control module (not the one I cut up in the photos above) which will be relocated off the seat to somewhere safe, like the underside of the adapter bracket.
A week and a half until the big weekend and preparations continue.
I did some internet searching and found some a number of threads about small cracks/fissures on the surface of trackday brake pads. The consensus seems to be that isn't abnormal if you really work the brakes, and if the cracks aren't big, don't extend to the edge, aren't accompanied by chunking, and the pads have plenty of thickness and still work normally, it may not be an issue, which sets my mind at ease a bit.
My tires came in (Ventus RS4 225/45-17) so I had them installed plus an alignment this morning before work at my awesome friendly local motorsports tire shop, ANT Tire/Trackside Motorsports.
The alignment wasn't far off; not bad for the home job I did with rudimentary tools after installing the coilovers. As a daily driver, I like rubber bushings, so I have limited adjustments, with all stock control arms, and stock strut tops. We added a smidge more negative camber in the right front via the slots where the coilover bolts to the knuckle, and ended up with -1.56 left and -1.53 right and zero toe up front. Back ended around -2.0 degrees camber (!!) and -0.02 toe. I guess I need to see if there is a rubber-bushed adjustable arm available for the rear to reduce the negative camber back to something reasonable.
I also made progress on the passenger seat occupancy sensor wiring extension after work. I soldered a length of different colored wire to each pin, and then shrink-wrapped the exposed sections.
Next steps are to disconnect the battery, plug this in to the seat, check clearance against the bracket, and if all goes well like I expect it to, complete the harness by trimming to length, adding terminals to the other end, and looming it all together. I will relocate the slightly-bulky control module from the current location ziptied to the bottom of the seat to the underside of the underside of the seat bracket where it won't be an impediment to sliding the seat. The newly-formed harness extension will make up the length difference, and will have enough length and mobility to allow use of the full range of the sliding rails since the module will no longer move with the seat.
A little bit of work done today. I had plans to meet shopmate oldeskewltoy at the shop to do some work on his project, so I roped him into helping me flush and bleed the brakes.
We also got some fresh fluid in the clutch while we were in there. Brakes feel great and should be ready for my momentum-car-trying-to-brake-late-as-possible driving style at the trackday next weekend
I also tested each wire on my passenger occupancy sensor harness, and continuity checks out perfectly. I loomed them together with Super 33+ and grabbed terminal pins and harness sheathing to complete the other end at work some evening this week.
I had a bit of a frustrating day yesterday. I attempted to put the extension harness on the underside of the passenger seat in a way that would allow me to relocate the control module to a location that wouldn't interfere with the movement of the seat.
The difficulty is that the space between seat and adapter bracket is really tight, and the space between the adapter bracket and the floor is really tight, so my assumption that I could relocate the module to the bottom of the bracket isn't necessarily true. The secondary problem is that the space between the two crossbars of the adapter bracket is less than the range of adjustment on the sliders, so there is no single location for the module or the wiring that doesn't hit at one end or the other. It doesn't matter which side things are mounted to, if it clears the rear crossbar when all the way back, it will hit the front crossbar before sliding all the way forward, and vice versa.
I contemplated cutting the bracket apart and welding things back together differently, but I honestly think it would be easier to go with the other wild idea that crossed my mind of ditching the extension harness, pulling the seat bottom cushion out of the seat, peeling the cover off, hollowing out the foam to tuck the entire fricking module inside the seat cushion hollow, plug the module directly into the sensor, shove it into the hollow, and then reinstall the bottom cushion upholstery.
Neither one was going to happen starting on a Monday night at 7:30pm, so I tried a half dozen different setups before I went with this setup, which seemed OKish at first glance:
Seat all the way back, module ziptied to the seat bracket in the left of this view, extension harness I built plugged in and forming a big loop. The module brushes seat and maybe floor on occasion, but I don't think it will be a hard interference. The connector to the vehicle-side harness is still in a decent location, which is another consideration.
Bench mock-up of seat all the way forward position with the same setup as above. Extension harness has a tiny bit of slack, and the grey connector to the vehicle-side harness still seems in a doable position. Unlike lots of my other mockups, this one didn't interfere with the sliders at either extreme.
I went for it and installed it in the car, did a slide forward and back test, reconnected the battery, aaaaaaand....airbag warning light! 
No idea what went wrong, but I tested functionality on the passenger side occupant sensor and it isn't working. It doesn't switch on when key on sitting in the passenger seat, so something isn't connected correctly, or came disconnected.
At this point is was late enough I was throwing in the towel for the day. Frustrating to say the least.
I will solve this long-term, but for the short-term, 95% of my usage is me alone, so I'll get the passenger airbag solved before taking anyone for a ride.
With the first sunny and warm spring weather of the year forecast for the rest of the week, I'll be taking a bike or the Cappuccino with the top down to work for the rest of the week, and bring the FR-S out on Friday in time for the trackcross and trackday three-day weekend coming up.
The trackcross plus trackday three-day weekend at Oregon Raceway Park last weekend was awesome!
I drove out to Biggs Junction the night before, which made getting to the track shortly after 7am in the morning much more relaxed than if I'd driven all the way from Portland.
Saturday was hot and sunny, and I ran in the morning and worked in the afternoon. There was a great crowd of folks from the two clubs co-hosting: Bridge City Autosports plus Willamette Motor Club and the usual really interesting mix of cars.
Mount Adams in the distance.
Mt. Hood in the distance. GRMer Javelin's Audi in the foreground. There was also a white Focus there with GRM stickers, and I pitted next to some folks who are Classic Motorsports subscribers and were running a older beautiful red Honda.
The Saturday trackcross course ran on the 2.3-mile road racing course, going counter clockwise. It didn't drive as differently from the road course as I was imagining before the event, thinking about an autocross at a track. Basically the cones pushed us off a tight inside apex, slowing the corners a little. The straights had short 3-cone slaloms, offsets, and/or offset gates. I was running the entire course in third gear to give you an idea of speed. Runs were between 120 and 170 seconds long! It felt a bit like time attack meets autocross to me.
I spent Saturday getting to grips with the format, as well as playing around with tire pressures and damper settings in between each run. By the end of the day I had a good baseline for the new tires, and a better understanding of the compression and rebound settings on the KW coilovers.
My usual style is to strive for clean runs, and gaining speed with every run. My runs (in seconds) were 161, 157, 148, 142, 144 with one cone, and then someone spun and stalled/couldn't restart, my tires got cold, my focus wandered, and the last was 148 again.
Here's where I tagged the cone...I was moving at 60-some mph! I was less than an inch from clearing it, but I'm not as confident with where the edges of this car are as I was with the AE86 I drove for decades.
The blue tape on the wheels was an experiment on the suggestion of my photographer buddy. He says a white car with flat black wheels is THE WORST combination to try and shoot in a bright sunny action setting, and that he might take more pictures of me if I had some color in the wheels.
Sunday was the same trackcross format as Saturday, only run in the clockwise direction, and with an even more flowing course. Fewer offsets and gates on the straights, and more traditional slaloms, which are soooo satisfying when you get them right!
FR-S gridded in pit lane behind the white 911.
With my suspension better dialed, I felt like I was pushing it a bit more on Sunday. I still managed to stay mostly clean, with just one cone on one run, but it was a doozy! The car felt good in transitions, but I was struggling with a little under steer in places, and I understeered into on of the gate cones at a pretty good clip! It wasn't like Saturday where I barely tagged it...this one I hit with 2-3 inches of overlap. I guess that's how you find the edge!
The imprint leaves little doubt as to what I hit! It kind of reminds me of the Wily E Coyote silhouette punched through the wall! 
I think the primary culprit for the understeer was me over-driving, but perhaps there are some tweaks to the suspension/alignment that can shift the balance a bit. Once again I improved on time every run except the last, which is a trend I'm okay with.
On raw time, I was 45th fastest out of 66 drivers who posted times today. There was a huge group of us who were within 1-2% of each other who could have ended up jumping up or falling back 10 places either direction with a tiny gain or loss. On a 2:26-long course, if I had been 123 thousandths faster I would have beaten a Model S Plaid, and if I'd been 34 thousandths slower, I would have been beaten by a Mazdaspeed Miata. 6 thousandths behind that was a Focus ST...a really entertaining mix!
I was monitoring oil temps with my fancy new gauge, and they were only getting into the 210-215 range with this single lap format...still no oil cooler, and ambient temps in the high-70's to low 80's.
A couple photos to attempt to show how the course was minimally modified, and set up to slow us down safely but also minimize potential cones needing to be shagged:
I was relieved that trackcross didn't tax the brakes much; certainly a little more than regular autocross, but way closer to autocross than trackdays on the braking intensity spectrum. There was still the Monday trackday to look forward to!
Tire condition looks great after the drive out to Central Oregon, plus two days of trackcross. Ready for Monday!
Some BCA club stalwarts to give an idea of the variety of vehicles; Jack's Chrysler Crossfire, Jared's Fiesta ST, David's Fox Body Mustang (with PDX carpet interior) and Grant's 'Liger Zero' engine-swapped S197 Mustang.
The Monday trackday was awesome! It was cooler and cloudy, with occasional spitting rain. We ran clockwise, which is the direction I'm most familiar with. There was a bigger changeover of participants from Sunday to Monday than from Saturday to Sunday, with quite a few folks leaving, and a few new ones showing up. The trackday was limited to 60, and a few folks broke or didn't show, so there was plenty of track time/space to be had!
As I pulled in, I figured I found the right parking area!
Oh yeah...this is going to be fun! There was also a good crowd of Miata peeps, and E30/E36/E46 3-series peeps, so lots of similar-paced momentum cars to play with!
My goals for the day were to slowly work my way up on pace, get a ton of seat time, play with TCS sport mode vs the long-hold stability-control-mostly-sort-of-off mode, and monitor oil temperatures and get real data about the twins reputation for "needing" an oil cooler for track days. After posting better times with less shifting in the trackcross, I also wanted to see if my previous experience of feeling like I needed to use 2nd gear was a necessity or if I could "lug" 3500-4000 in third in the two tight corners and not lose time.
For the track tour, I jumped at the chance to ride shotgun with Bill (white lab coat) in the P71. He's the track manager and super-experienced on all configurations/directions of the course. It was a good move as he dropped a fair bit of wisdom and line suggestions and camber/grip/runoff details on each run between the stops in the tour (as well as the public knowledge-share at each stop around the track.)
I got four 20-minute sessions, plus a 30-minute stint and a 15 minute stint during the open track later in the day! I had to visit the fuel station in the afternoon; definitely glad there is now gas at the track! I accomplished all my goals. In a cloudy day with temps in the 60's, the maximum oil temp I saw was approaching 240 degrees. Most track time was in the 215-235 range, and I'm perfectly okay with that.
One highlight of the weekend was the open track after 3:30. My buddy Arash (NC Miata) has graduated to instructor, so it isn't as easy to run together anymore. I found new friends Mike (E46 3-series) Greg (E46 3-series) and Grant (Mk 6 Golf) to run with. At the end of the day the spitting rain let up, and we all went out together to play chase/lead and had a ball swapping positions and comparing techniques. We were pushing each other and having a blast!
I also use Trackside for my Miata tire needs. Those guys are cool and there's always some sweet rally cars around the shop.
In reply to thatsnowinnebago :
Indeed; I always like going by and seeing what is around. I've known Garth and Kyle for at least 20 years (!) from rally, rallycross, and RWD Toyota connections. When I got out of AE86s and KP61s, Garth came by and bought up a bunch of my inventory of spares.
My photographer buddy posted some of the pictures he snapped at trackcross! He says these are only okay, not great, but I'm always impressed with how exciting and action-packed he manages to make autocross look.
w00t! Made the magazine!
In other news, I returned from vacation recently. I hadn't driven the car in ~2 weeks. This morning the battery (which is a five-year-old, undersized lightweight battery which already died once a few months back and was revived by an overnight trickle charge) was good for two slow turns...RRr, rrr, click...and then stopped turning altogether and the dash lights dimmed. 
I drove the Cappuccino to work instead. A new battery is on order and should be here Wednesday.
In other, other news, I finally got my renewal paperwork in the mail (tags expire at the end of August) so now I can go get smogged at DEQ once the new battery arrives!
Trackcross and trackday double header weekend with Bridge City Autosports at ORP in three weeks! Can't wait!
Got the new battery. Put the new battery in. The car works, life is back to normal, and I'm a happy man...off to my other more involved projects, with one less hanging over me.
Drive to work yesterday, then did an oil change and check over in preparation for this weekend's double-header trackcross and trackday weekend!
I had so much fun at the track last weekend! The weather was hot, the company of my fellow competitors was wonderful, there was a great variety of cars, limits were pushed (and occasionally overstepped) and there was track time aplenty!
A few photos from grid for Saturday's trackcross morning session. I was slotted behind a very 80's widebody Rabbit racecar, and a very 70's T-top Corvette with raised white lettering and an enthusiastic young owner. I had fun comparing times and notes with the owner of the red SSC BRZ a couple cars in front of me. I gained time every run until the heat caught up with us and my tires got greasy, at which point I plateaued. I'm OK with that result. Can't complain about 8 runs, especially when the runs are all over 2 minutes long! I love the trackcross format!
Saturday evening my NC Miata buddy (and near-perfectly-matched-pace trackday lead-and-follow companion) rallied a group of us to check out a local Western-themed watering hole in the evening. We enjoyed a bite and a cold one, and talked about cars at length. The spectacular sunset behind the Cascade peaks was a nice bonus. From the right spot, Mt Rainier, Mt Adams, Mt Hood, and Mt Jefferson were all visible, but also impossible to capture in a photo with my phone and rudimentary skills. Adams and Hood are prominently visible here. The evening eventually cooled, and I slept really well at the local motel we frequent for these events.
I've been meaning to add an update about the Sunday track day, but haven't yet because I broke my wrist in an unrelated incident and typing is a bit difficult !
I had a ton of fun, got fairly settled on tire pressures with the new tires, explored the limits of the handling and the engine oil temperature, and had some useful instruction!
Saturday night one of the instructors expressed interest in comparing notes as he has the new version of my car, so we each rode with each other on Sunday. He gave me some pointers on my driving, which is always welcome, and high praises for the chassis setup on my car!
I rode in his GR86 premium in the first afternoon instructors session. It is bone stock except wheels/tires. Initial impressions from the passenger seat: the torque is awesome, otherwise strikes me as similar to mine.
With my tires at 23 psi cold, they came up to 30 psi hot, and were fairly stable there, remaining consistent over 20 minutes. Wear and roll over both look great. The mammoth long session I did saw them increase to 31.5-32 psi.
Anything above 33 psi hot starts to lose grip and speed. Ventus RS4, FWIW.
I'm going to need the oil cooler sooner rather than later, and certainly before the supercharger. Granted it was an exceptional day because it was hot (94 degree high,) and because I stayed out on track for one 40+ minute stint...the telltale on my oil temp gauge showed a peak of 267! Most of the time on track was 225-250 today.
Something to look into is the thermostatic sandwich plate on the oil cooler. With the cooler installed, will the oil still get up to at least 215-220 to burn off water and contaminants?
By the end of the weekend my longtime lead-and-follow buddy (NC Miata with same Ventus RS4 as me, only 245 vs my 225) freely admitted I'm faster...I could gap him fairly easily. We're usually really evenly-matched, so nice to have an indicator that I'm getting faster. There's still one complex where he gaps me by braking later, so I've still got more to study and improve upon.
Late in the day I nearly spun twice on corner entry playing with trail braking in downhill decreasing radius corners. I also put a wheel off twice (no damage) on corner exit; too much speed and just ran out of real estate! I took this as I sign that the car and I were getting tired and packed it in for the day.
A thermostatic sandwich plate is always a good idea, I got one from RacerX. With my 30-row cooler at the back of the radiator stack, oil temps settle at about 250F on long stints. I've heard of FA20s with no oil cooler reaching oil temps close to 300F! I would also recommend bumping the viscosity to 5W30, that's what the manual recommends for use in severe conditions.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Thanks for the input and data point! What's your oil temp during steady operation, but light load...for example, cruising at steady highway speed after getting fully warm? Mine is currently 210-215 in that situation in summer weather.
In reply to ae86andkp61 (Forum Supporter) :
Will have to check, normally I never hook up an app to look at it/data log it unless I'm on track. I'll try to remember to have a look on the way to an autocross this weekend.
In reply to ae86andkp61 (Forum Supporter) :
Got the temps on a drive back from an autocross today with some highway cruising and heavy traffic, a pretty hot day out, the car's gauge was showing 27C ambient temp. Cruising the highway, oil temps would fall to somewhere between 194-198F, in traffic they would go a bit higher, highest I saw was 208F. Coolant temps were always in the 190-194F range.
Was thinking you might also like to see the oil analysis done on the first change after the oil cooler was installed, I ran this oil from spring '22 to spring '23 with the oil cooler installed in September '22:
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Thanks! Very useful data! At this point, the remainder of this year is a wash due to my injuries, but I'm thinking ahead and looking ahead to implementing a few tweaks to the car before next spring.
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