somedude_001
SHO Member
this was my first trip to the track in my newly purchased 1990 SHO. The car is all stock except for 13" cobra brakes with hawk HT-10 pads (which I love BTW). So my first lap was a bit of a feeler for the car. I was taking a turn much slower than I should have had too and the rear end slid right out from under me. but it was the slowest oversteer event I have ever experienced, infact it was such a slow slide I started laughing then once i finished "drifting" the turn I mashed teh gas and the car pulled right out no problem. This was at like 25mph, and once the tires were hot i was hitting the turn in the 45-50mph range so at the time I was like WTF time to go into the pits. Oh i forgot to mention that every turn I got to listen to the rear tires rubbing on the fenders.
So now i'm in the pits and I notice some smoke comming from the hood. That is a P/S leaking on the exhaust no biggy.
I get a hammer and a jack and I proceed to pound on the fenders to make them clear my 245/45/17 victoracers. Once that is done I notice that my RF tire looks a bit low. Then it hits me like a ton of bricks. I only filled up 3 of my tires before I left my house. I check it and sure enough 14psi. It still had my drag pressure in it. :laugh_ti:
so lets recap. I am trying to track a nearly bone stock 100K SHO with its only upgrades being sticky ass tires and unnecessarily powerful brakes. I only made it 1 lap before realizing i forgot to air up one of my tires, my rear fenders were rubbing, and I have a small P/S leak.
so I get back on the track and take 3 or 4 laps kind of easy sorting out the cars quirks. For example the subframe bushings are shifting a bit. This is something that wasn't a issue on street tires but isn't a safety issue so I adjusted to it. I decided that I was going to run 3rd gear for the whole track to avoid unnecessary shifting until a certain porsche boxer catches up to me. I quickly point her by and begin following her line. I have more power than her in the straights so i'm keeping up well on the 2 long straights. When we get into the tighter portion of the track she starts pulling away from me because i'm at 3200rpm so I give it a nice WOT downshift pulling out of turn 2 to maintain pace with her and I notice the steering tighten right up at second half of the turn just as I was correcting for letting the rear end hang out a bit . I check my mirrors and it was all white smoke. Once I completed the turn I went full brake and immediately yanked the car off the track to keep from spilling oil everywhere. This is where most people would stop but instead I just idled second gear the entire perimeter of the track back to the pits in the grass. By the time I got back the exhaust had cooled down and the P/S system was dry + the tall grass cleaned the bottom of my car so no more oil was dripping.
ah crap that sucks now i'm a hour away from my house in canada... ahh **** i'll just drive it home... I talked to the person in our club that setup the event and he thanked me for getting the car off the track safely and for somehow not spilling any oil on the track. He asked if it was fixable and I said "no but P/S is for bitches anyway so F it" :laugh_ti: of course I was joking and he said i could keep racing if I felt the car was safe and not a fire hazard. So I did. The next day (sunday) I was so sore from trying to steer the car. I had to do all of my braking before turns and let the weight transfer OFF the front tires before turning otherwise I could not turn the wheel. 3300lb sedan > 125lb driver.
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/dunville-track-day-92808_187971.htm
I was the slowest car on the track by I think they said 3/4 of a second. The next guy was driving a miata on street tires, and he drives the **** out of that car, so i didn't feel too bad. H said he would have had to **** himself if a limping taurus beat him.:laugh_ti: Thanks to the massive brakes I was able to brake much later than most of the car which helped keep my times from being completely horrible.
So now i'm in the pits and I notice some smoke comming from the hood. That is a P/S leaking on the exhaust no biggy.
I get a hammer and a jack and I proceed to pound on the fenders to make them clear my 245/45/17 victoracers. Once that is done I notice that my RF tire looks a bit low. Then it hits me like a ton of bricks. I only filled up 3 of my tires before I left my house. I check it and sure enough 14psi. It still had my drag pressure in it. :laugh_ti:
so lets recap. I am trying to track a nearly bone stock 100K SHO with its only upgrades being sticky ass tires and unnecessarily powerful brakes. I only made it 1 lap before realizing i forgot to air up one of my tires, my rear fenders were rubbing, and I have a small P/S leak.
so I get back on the track and take 3 or 4 laps kind of easy sorting out the cars quirks. For example the subframe bushings are shifting a bit. This is something that wasn't a issue on street tires but isn't a safety issue so I adjusted to it. I decided that I was going to run 3rd gear for the whole track to avoid unnecessary shifting until a certain porsche boxer catches up to me. I quickly point her by and begin following her line. I have more power than her in the straights so i'm keeping up well on the 2 long straights. When we get into the tighter portion of the track she starts pulling away from me because i'm at 3200rpm so I give it a nice WOT downshift pulling out of turn 2 to maintain pace with her and I notice the steering tighten right up at second half of the turn just as I was correcting for letting the rear end hang out a bit . I check my mirrors and it was all white smoke. Once I completed the turn I went full brake and immediately yanked the car off the track to keep from spilling oil everywhere. This is where most people would stop but instead I just idled second gear the entire perimeter of the track back to the pits in the grass. By the time I got back the exhaust had cooled down and the P/S system was dry + the tall grass cleaned the bottom of my car so no more oil was dripping.
ah crap that sucks now i'm a hour away from my house in canada... ahh **** i'll just drive it home... I talked to the person in our club that setup the event and he thanked me for getting the car off the track safely and for somehow not spilling any oil on the track. He asked if it was fixable and I said "no but P/S is for bitches anyway so F it" :laugh_ti: of course I was joking and he said i could keep racing if I felt the car was safe and not a fire hazard. So I did. The next day (sunday) I was so sore from trying to steer the car. I had to do all of my braking before turns and let the weight transfer OFF the front tires before turning otherwise I could not turn the wheel. 3300lb sedan > 125lb driver.
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/dunville-track-day-92808_187971.htm
I was the slowest car on the track by I think they said 3/4 of a second. The next guy was driving a miata on street tires, and he drives the **** out of that car, so i didn't feel too bad. H said he would have had to **** himself if a limping taurus beat him.:laugh_ti: Thanks to the massive brakes I was able to brake much later than most of the car which helped keep my times from being completely horrible.
