Drivermod Dadmobile Daily Si Journal

[st4xor]

Bought my 2020 FC1 in late 2019 knowing that I wanted to get in to HPDE but also looking for a vehicle that would be a reliable, practical, economical daily driver. The Si has not disappointed! As time rolls on and I find my appreciation for the Si increasing, I figured it might be time to start capturing some of the things I do with it along the way--both to help out others where possible and for my own retrospective in a couple of years. I used to spend a lot of time daydreaming and noodling around with what my "next track/fun car" would be. But market conditions and my desire to get in the game and start getting hands-on have brought me to more of a "love the one you're with" disposition--so time will tell just how far this car takes me, but current feeling is that we're just getting started. This will not be a fast build because I will be trying to track day after every small batch of changes, but at some point in the future there may be some useful info here for others to take into account along their own journey.

How it started:

When I bought my Si I had more or less never worked on cars before. I had swapped winter/summer wheels&tires a couple times on my previous car, but did my first oil change on my Si and we've gone onwards and upwards from there.


How it's going:

Interior:

• Acuity Stage 3 full shifter kit
• Acuity throttle pedal spacer (position B)
• Pedal stop hack for throttle pedal spacer
• Corsomotion interior LED kit

Audio:

• JL Audio C2 tweeters & center channel
• Infinity Primus front door speakers
• Various sound deadening

Exterior:

• Raceseng front tow hook (F&R tow mechanisms required by HPDE org)
• Functional rear tow strap bolted to crash bar
• Jets vinyl chrome delete & side marker smoke overlays

Engine bay:

• PRL Stage 1 Intake tube+filter
• PRL Rear motor mount
• Prosport oil temp+pressure sensors/gauges
• Warranty

Suspension & Chassis:

• Whiteline springs
• Whiteline 22mm RSB w/ lateral locks and accord endlinks
• Wunderladen Racing adjustable rear toe arms
• Front strut pins pulled, w/ Wunderladen Racing front strut locks
• SPC -1 camber ball joints front
• CTR subframe brace

Track Setup:

• Wunderladen Racing BBK
• EBC RP-1 front brake pads
• EBC blue rear brake pads
• RBF 600 brake fluid
• EBC blank front rotors (WR BBK)
• Centric 120 series blank rear rotors
• Wunderladen Racing rear brake caliper brass bushings
• Goodridge stainless steel brake lines
• Conti ECS 245/45r17 on Konig Hypergam 17x9 +40 (shed 10 lbs per corner!)
• Racebox mini on dash
• Akaso V50 Pro w/ external mic, Delkin Fat Gecko Triple with Extension on sunroof

Up Next:

• Track Day tire set 2, leaning Conti Extremecontact Force (probably 255/40r17)

Retired:

• Retired after track day 4:
  • Stock Si front brake calipers & rotors
  • Carbotech XP8 front brake pads
• Retired after track day 3:
  • Powerstop Track Day rear brake pads
• Retired after track day 1:
  • Powerstop Track Day front brake pads
  • ATE Type 200 brake fluid

 

[st4xor]

I started documenting my track day adventures in a different thread. If you're following along with the complete story, start here.

Track Day Log

• First ever, Summit Point Shenandoah
• #2, Summit Point Shenandoah
• #3, Summit Point Jefferson
• #4, Summit Point Main (wet->damp->dry)
• #5, Summit Point Main

 

[st4xor]

Reserved

 

[st4xor]

Reserved

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Awesome! Look forward to seeing your adventures with your Si

I agree that this platform is one of the best on the current market for fun, engaging to drive cars that are great for daily use and still a hoot at the track.

 

[st4xor]

Two items landed on my to-do list after track day #2:

• Add some front negative camber to even out tire wear
• Track day org I run with moved me up to the intermediate run group, which adds a requirement for a rear tow hook/strap in addition to the front I was already running

Up first was front negative camber. I decided to pull front strut alignment pins and do SPC adjustable ball joints in one fell swoop to try to get to -1.5 or so on each side.

I debated for a while about just planning to pay up and go to a shop after the install for an alignment. But after some extra youtubing (best resource here, but there are many tutorials out there), I talked myself up to attempting a DIY string box alignment instead. String alignment seemed more useful than and saving some $$$, at the expense of time.

I built up a string rig (8' steel closet bars from Home Depot are nice and rigid) and took some baseline measurements before I started the install. I ended up buying an aluminum metric ruler with built in level, and also an analog camber gauge to complete the setup. Getting everything lined up was a matter of first making sure the bars were parallel with the front and rear of the car, and then making sure the strings were centered on the car by ensuring the distance from hub to string was the same on each side of the car for each axle (note that the rear track is about 1.5cm wider than the front). Once the strings were in place, it was pretty easy to take measurements--just required some time and care.

Strut pin removal and strut lock install was a piece of cake. Used nut&washer method to pop out the pins, jacked up the car, and pushed in on the top wheel.

Adjustable lower ball joint install was considerably more involved. On install day, I had access to a lift. Install seemed pretty straight forward after doing a bunch of research, but once underway I had one hell of a time trying to figure out how exactly to get enough clearance use my harbor freight ball joint removal tool with the axle assembly still in the hub and the lower control arm still on the car. I couldn't get enough clearance to get the castle nut all the way off the top of the ball joint until after I popped the ball joint free, so I ended up loosening the castle nut just barely enough to allow for some play for popping, but not so much that I couldn't get the ball joint tool in between the top of the castle nut and the axle assembly. Also needed to free the other end of the ball joint from the lower control arm (three nuts). This is a subtlety you might not realize if you are looking at the lower ball joint DIY, where the LCAs were taken off the car before install. *Whew* that was tight:

If you are more of a beginner DIY like me, I would suggest reading up on coilovers install for this platform before tacking the lower ball joint job, because you're flirting with all of the dangerous stuff with this install. The infamous CV boot tearing bracket on the lower control arm is right in front of your face the whole time. And while trying to wrestle things around, at one point I ended up barely popping the axle out of the trans on the driver side--but knew immediately what happened and got it back in place without a disaster. All in, it took me a lot longer to get this done than I thought it would. But I got the car back together, doing front toe alignment with my string rig was simple (lift + using two pieces of plastic sheeting with lubricant in between the layers to help the suspension settle after setting the car down) compared to the ball joint install, and I did successfully get to approximately -1.5 camber on both front corners.

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

String alignments are an invaluable skill that works for every car. It's not uncommon for it to be more accurate than the average laser rack alignment job too!

Have any more track days this year?

 

[st4xor]

String alignments are an invaluable skill that works for every car. It's not uncommon for it to be more accurate than the average laser rack alignment job too!

Have any more track days this year?

Yeah, string alignment seemed like one of those good skills that will pay big dividends over time--and I figured no time like the present to start getting practice and doing reps.

I do have one track day left this year, Summit Point Jefferson on 10/14--one week from today.

And then it will be time to start planning out next year

 

[st4xor]

Also, this short aluminum level with metric ruler (or whatever you find that is similar) was really helped speed up measurents--and making sure.youre level when measuring probably.helps.a lot with accuracy/repeatability.

 

[st4xor]

Rear tow strap was second on my to-do list for track day #3. Unlike the hatchback, the sedan & coupe have no factory tow hook location in the rear of the vehicle. I've seen a number of variations of sedan/coupe rear straps that pop out of the rear bumper in varying locations--some of which look more up to the task of yanking the car out of a gravel trap than others. I was looking for a functional solution that I could also hide away while in stealth/dad mode. I found some inspiration from the HPD turnkey race cars, which appear to have tow straps mounted to the bottom of the rear crash bar:

I still have stock exhaust on my car and didn't want to run the risk of anything getting melty or overly blackened back there, so I decided to steer wide of the HDMI port and target the edge of the matte black rear bumper lower garnish. Another factor, I figured it would be cheaper to replace the garnish than the painted bumper cover itself if I ever wanted to get rid of the hole. So this is where I ended up on the crash bar:

I went with a 6in x 1/2in bolt to get through both top and bottom of the crash bar. Had plenty of room for a couple washers and full thread engagement, worked well:

I used a fresh sharp razor blade and a Dremel to clean up the hole, doing multiple test fit and material removal iterations. Got in a rush to wrap things up towards the end and had one instance of "Dremel gone wild" that scratched things up a little, but this trim piece is so dark and low to the ground that it doesn't bother me at all. I only really notice when my face is down there staring straight at it

When not in use, I can feed the strap back through the garnish, secure with a zip tie, and put a little 3" wide electrical tape over the hole. Being on the underside of the car and out of regular direct sunlight and not super noticeable, I think some vinyl electrical tape will do the job for me. Boom, stealth mode:

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Very clean execution! Great job!

 

[st4xor]

Track day #3, Summit Point Jefferson is in the books. What a beautiful day it was to squeal some tires:

Had some surprises, so please play along and give your own thoughts.

I went in to the day two main goals (well, above and beyond "bring the car home intact", that is) to work on:

- Building on braking confidence gained during Track Day #2, concentrate on hard initial brake application, trailing off after turn-in. Every time. My braking traces tell me I do this while sim racing, but I needed to break some bad road habits in a track setting.
- First time in Intermediate group and on a new track, so hold my own and don't do anything too stupid.

Well I mostly accomplished everything, but had a little drama along the way. The star of the show being that 1.5 laps before the end of my 2nd 20-minute session, the fresh Powerstop Track Day rear brake pads I installed in September (alright, 2 months <1k miles street driving) were down to the backing plate in the passenger rear corner of the car, outboard pad (opposite the piston, image right):

"Holy sh*t, I just got so lucky" was what I said out loud after checking pad depth when the driver behind me came up after I got back to the paddock and let me know he saw smoke coming out of the right rear of the car. The amazing thing was that the braking system was apparently doing well enough to compensate for the braking system change that I told my instructor that I hadn't perceived any differences in the braking feel. Neither instructor nor I felt or heard anything concerning at the end of the session. One thing that probably helped a lot was that the inboard pad on that same corner still had some pad material left (image above at left).

Fortunately I had another set of pads at home (which my beautiful wife was willing to drive out) and all the tools I needed to change pads with me, so I was able to change pads quickly over lunch and get back out there for session 3 (unfortunately with the same brand of pad that I had just annihilated), albeit going a little bit more gentle on the brakes (more on that in a minute).

I talked with a lot of people about theories as to what occured through the remainder of the day (I was running with VSA and TC full on; maybe it was a freak pad failure; maybe it was brake grease on one side of the rotor; etc.) but when I pulled the 2nd set of rear pads (picture below, bottom, left to right as they would be installed in the car if observing from begin the vehicle) off the car later in the weekend, I laid them out next to the first set of pads (picture below, bottom) and was very surprised to find that the wear patterns were very similar on the two sets of pads (passenger outboard more worn than any other pads):

It's kind of hard to tell from the picture, but hands-on with calipers the pattern was more apparent.

So a couple things:

• After looking at the surprising amount of wear on the 2nd set of pads (after trying to take it a little bit more easy session 3&4) and tearing down the brake system back at home in the garage, I'm pretty convinced that the car and pads were operating nominally and I simply did just really use up the pads. I think I'm done with Powerstop compounds now--i plan to get some carbotech XP8 + new rotors for next year.
• I've not yet heard stories of VSA eating pads, but I suppose I can't rule that out as a possibilty without an A - B comparison. Anyone have any other experiences/thoughts?
• I got through 2x full days at Shenandoah on my first set of PSTD pads. And not even 2x 20-minute sessions (25% of the track time) on Jefferson with the 2nd. Jefferson is a shorter lap with 3 80+ mph brake zones (vice 2 brake zones over a longer lap for Shenandoah). To make things worse, I was heavily trail-braking in to two turn complexes-- an off-camber, downhill, decreasing radius (at least on the "HPDE line" my instructor was teaching) Turn 7; and a "12"/13/14 complex that you kind of turn in to one continuous double-apex. Layout. The track is also counter-clockwise, so the passenger side of the car (backing plate side) experienced more loading throughout the day.

So I think I was probably just dumping more heat in to the brakes (more trailing, shorter lap for cooling) and found the practical limit of the PSTD compound at the rear of the car with me at the wheel. Hence, moving to an XP8 compound (and probably paired with the 1521 compound for the street to mimimize chances of mishandling rotors during swaps) for next time.

Reference lap link below. May not be my fastest of the day (Racebox mini had dead batteries somehow, and forgot to start my camera for session 4), but probably pretty "representative":





I'll cut this post here, but more to cover...

 

[JO3L]

Curious as to why you track the car with VSA enabled? The first time I forgot to disable it before a session I almost pulled off because the car didn't feel right, almost as if something was wrong with the motor because it was down on power.

 

[st4xor]

Curious as to why you track the car with VSA enabled? The first time I forgot to disable it before a session I almost pulled off because the car didn't feel right, almost as if something was wrong with the motor because it was down on power.

Short answer: there are a good number of resources out there like this that will tell you not to turn off ESC/VSA when you're new on track, and I've not yet found a compelling reason for me with my skill level (and an Instructor in the right seat for all three days thus far) to turn it off for this car. But who knows, maybe I'm about to discover a compelling reason.

I've mentally set the bar as I'll start dabbling with TC off and then maybe VSA "disabled" when I graduate to Solo and it's only my rear end on the line.

 

[JO3L]

Hmm interesting read. I always believed the opposite to be true. Learn how the car behaves at the limit without any electronical assistance and it will make you a better driver in the long run and carry over to other vehicles with different engine & drive type configurations

Sponsored