I took my car to Atlanta Motorsports Park last Sunday for my first day at the track with the car, and my first time at that track. It was a blast! 

The car did very well, I really could not have been more pleased. You can tell that the engineers spent a lot of time sorting out the cars track capabilities, as there was nothing that it did wrong and nothing unpredictable about the way it drove. I was impressed. The 300 treadwear Michelin PS4S's actually did really well, they had a lot of grip and showed no real handling quirks whatsoever, and the alignment seemed to be spot on. The only issue I had was the fact that I didn't have a chance to flush the brake fluid before I went, and after about 3 sessions on the track I pulled back in to let the car cool down some, and when I got back in to drive again I had no brake pedal at all. Apparently, the fluid boiled while I was sitting still, because I never had any fade or any other brake issues while I was on the track. Once everything cooled down, the pedal came back and I could drive it home. I'm just glad it showed up while sitting still instead of at 100+ mph and trying to slow down to 30+ mph in Turn 1. That would not have been good.

So, I have new brake pads (Porterfield RS4 front and rear), new steel braided brake lines for the front and rear, and we'll be flushing the brake fluid with something that is track friendly. All of that will be happening next week. I'm waiting on the 2 new rear tires (Tire Rack says they should arrive today) and the steel braided brake lines (Friday) to get here so we can take both cars to Balanced Performance Motors to get all of the work done. It seems like the longer I have to wait, the more things I find to do. 🙂

So this is the current list for next week. Both cars will go at the same time and they will be there for a day or two, but hopefully just one.

• Dismount my tires (Michelin PS4S) and mount/balance on the new wheels - wife's car.
• Install the Swift springs - wife's car
• Mount/balance new tires (Falken RT660) - my car
• Flush brake fluid - my car
• Install new brake lines - my car
• Install new pads - my car

We'll drive her car around for a day or two to let the springs settle, and we'll take it back for an alignment.

All of the new hardware that was installed last week on my car worked perfectly at the track. The high pressure fuel pump, low pressure fuel pump, flex fuel sensor, and wideband gauge all worked great and are good to go for the E85 tune. I tried to remove the Trifecta tune from the car yesterday but had issues, so I'm going to try that again today. The Trifecta tune has to come off the car first so that I can send the stock file to the new tuner. Once he gets that, he'll send me his 93 octane tune back to me, and I flash it to the car. I'll then go out and log a few 2-4 gear pulls, and then send him the log file back. He'll then tweak the tune based on the data from the log file, and send it back to me to flash to the car. We may go through that several times to get it right. Ideally I would do tha ton the dyno, but I'll save that for the E85 tune. 

Once we have the 93 octane tune down, work starts on the E85 part of the tune, and that will happen on the dyno. According to Justin, I should be looking at about a 100 rwhp increase with his E85 tune versus the 93 tune, so "maybe" going from 520 whp (Justin's 93 tune and dp's) to 600-620 whp. I would be VERY happy with that power. That is basically a 700 hp at the crank engine. 

I thought I'd share a couple of pictures I took at the track. There were a lot of very nice cars out there that day and I wasn't sure how my car or myself would do compared to everyone else. Once  I got comfortable and started passing people, I had the answer. 🙂 I need a lot more work though, I was really rusty after three years of not going fast, so I definitely will be back again and again. 🙂 Plus, the next time the brakes will be better than they were, the tires will be grippier, and the engine will have another 100 horsepower. 🙂 And I'll turn on the data display next time. 🙂 

You can see the kart track in the center of the road course. It is huge. The have enduro races and open lapping, so there's another thing I'll be doing this year. 🙂 I told my wife I just need to buy one of their new trackside condos and live there. 🙂 

This video taken when three of us were on a leisurely pace behind the instructor so we could get familiar with the track. This is the only time I had the data overlay turned on unfortunately, so that's why I included the video here. It gives you an idea of the data I will have next time.... you know, when I won't make that mistake again? 😒 I had planned on using my GoPro too, but never did that either. I'm a real slacker... 🙂

This video was made using a dashcam that we use on vacations and trips, and at least it shows the speed even though it lags what the car was doing. It's also 1080p in stead of 720p like the camera in the car (above).