Si Track Report: First Time HPDE Summit Point Shenandoah

[st4xor]

I’ve benefited from a number of threads where other members have received track day car prep tips, so I wanted to report back to the community what I implemented and how it worked out for me at my first HPDE to help out the next guy/gal to come along.


In brief: The Si is a fantastic piece of equipment for a driver who is new to HPDE. It held up to the abuse perfectly, and provides a ton of capacity to learn/grow as a new HPDE driver.

Car Prep:
2020 Si Sedan, 100% stock powertrain, stock intake through exhaust. Continental ECS 245/45r17 (~8k street miles) on Konig Hypergram 17x9 +40 at all four corners. ATE type 200 brake fluid, goodridge stainless lines, with Powerstop Track Day pads (thanks @teders) and fresh centric 120 series blank rotors front and rear. Performed brake pad bed-in per Powerstop instructions as best as I could on public roads. Did fresh oil (OE spec) and Honda trans fluid changes a couple weeks before the HPDE.


The Driver:
Maybe the biggest variable in “car performance” is the driver, so I’ll attempt to capture a snapshot of where I was at in terms of skill level for this track day. I provide this so others can adjust prep & expectations accordingly depending on how your level of skill compares to mine. This was my first time in any car on any race track. Also no autox experience--I’m now in the stage of life where free weekend days are precious, so I feel like the more “dense” HDPE format (multiple 20+ minute sessions packed into one day) is going to work best for me going forward.

However, in related experience I picked up sim racing about a year ago, so I’ve gotten some exposure (lots of youtube) and reps with learning a racing line, basic car control theory, and have gained an appreciation that you first have to become consistent lap-to-lap before you can hope to improve. I found a somewhat low-fidelity Shenandoah circuit mod (3rd party) for Assetto Corsa, so between a few light sim sessions and some youtube I was able to learn the basic track layout (sequence of corners) before I arrived at the HPDE. I found the sim+youtube prep to be very helpful and I was able to hit the ground running at the HPDE, maximizing some of the early lead-follow and instructor ride-along laps to come up to speed on the driving line.


Event Format:
This was a Friday at the Track event on the Shenandoah circuit at Summit Point, novice group. I had an instructor with me in the car for 4x 20-minute sessions, plus some lead-follow laps and classroom instruction on flags, passing procedures, & driving line. The event was great, highly recommended--definitely felt like I got my money’s worth.


How it went:
I was super happy with the car. What a blast. Really happy that I got it out there as is. No mechanical issues, no flashing lights/warnings. I enabled sport mode and disabled CMBS (collision intervention), but left traction control/VSA (stability) enabled in their default settings. With it being my first time and having my instructor’s wellbeing in my hands in addition to my own, it seemed like the prudent thing to do to leave all the electronic nannies in place, and I can report that the interventions were not excessive--also no excessive brake wear or anything else weird. I felt power cuts pretty frequently on the Karussell and at the exit of one other turn, but nothing hateful and I was otherwise un-hindered. Not worried about lap times at this stage, and I would encourage others at a similar skill level to just leave them on.

I was able to get enough heat into the brakes in each of my last three 20-minute sessions to get a mushy brake pedal with some pulsing. No “pedal to the floor”/brake fluid boiling incidents, but I’m fairly certain that what I was experiencing was brake pad fade from exceeding the intended heat range for the Powerstop pads. My instructor suggested managing the brakes a bit by lifting off the throttle/coasting at the ends of the straights, and that was enough to make it through the day. But it definitely shook my confidence in the brakes a bit, which in turn made it difficult to start to play with trail braking into the corners, so I know this is something I need to address before the next time I go out so I can start working on some of those finer skills. But not a huge deal for the first time out--between flags, passing procedures, and just general HPDE stuff there is a firehose of stuff to learn the first time out there.

I was pleasantly surprised with how the tires held up as well--even with stock/factory alignment and OE recommended door jamb tire pressures. There was definitely some visible surface wear and abuse, but a lot of that wore off the fronts on the way home just from normal street cruising. Definitely plenty of life left in them--was glad that I didn’t completely destroy one or more.

Overall an awesome and fun day--I will definitely be back. If you have an Si and you haven’t done a track day yet, I would strongly suggest at least a track cross or other lead-follow format event. Everyone deserves that smile you get from cornering at speed in this car


For next time:
Definitely going to stick to tracks that I can scout out via sim racing for my first couple outings. Having a baseline level of familiarity before even showing up was hugely helpful. Instruction was also great and I will probably try to do a similar format again for my next outing to have someone call me out for any bad habits i might be forming.

I plan on giving the stock front calipers another shot with a Carbotech or G-LOC compound (probably an XP8/R8 unless someone has had a poor experience and would suggest going straight to an XP10/R10) to see if that is enough to provide a consistent feel and give some confidence in the braking system to start working on the next level of technique. I know a good number of people have gone BBK at this point, but I figure being able to make the stock caliper work would give me more classing options if I ever decided to do something like Time Trials. I’ll probably keep the Powerstop pads at the rear until I burn through this set--seems like they did fine.

I’ll probably do some sort of camera/data setup for my next outing. Didn’t want to have that one more thing to worry about this first time out, but I am interested in capturing a baseline before I go messing with much more on the car.


Anyone who has thoughts/suggestions, please fire away, I’m here to learn! Hope someone finds this useful and pulls the trigger on getting out there.

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[SerotoninHunter]

Biggest tip always: eyes up, eyes up, eyes up. Vision and looking further ahead is the quickest way to get quick. You should be aware of the subsequent turns before you apex your current one.

For track day virgins, I'd wouldn't recommend any timers as you need to spend the time getting acclimated to the speed and learning the track. Once you feel you're well past that, I'd recommend any free phone lap timer app to begin objectively working on your skills. Faster lap times == better driving. How else do you know if you braked late enough, entered fast enough, or got on the throttle early enough unless you see the results on your trap times.

A Garmin Catalyst + GoPro are tools I'd argue you can carry all the way to advanced level.

 

[powerqball]

I found a somewhat low-fidelity Shenandoah circuit mod (3rd party) for Assetto Corsa, so between a few light sim sessions and some youtube I was able to learn the basic track layout (sequence of corners) before I arrived at the HPDE.

Hey man, I've been searching all over for a Shenandoah Circuit mode for Assetto Corsa but haven't had any luck. would you be able to point me to it?? Thanks.

 

[st4xor]

Hey man, I've been searching all over for a Shenandoah Circuit mode for Assetto Corsa but haven't had any luck. would you be able to point me to it?? Thanks.

Go check out the "Drift Nirvana Assetto Corsa" FB group page and look for a link to their Google drive downloads. They have the track set up for drifting (some drift enthusiast spectators and some cones in weird places) but all of the asphalt is there, and I can vouch that the mod is helpful to learn the track.

 

[mcbridekean]

Eric, have you returned to the track ? I am interestEd to know if you found a solution to the brake fade…. I am new to the track, ran 10 laps at Carolina Motorsports a few weeks ago and the brakes faded (factory brakes and fluid). I upgraded the brake fluid and installed hawk hps 5.0 pads and return for my first hpde day next week. I am guessing the brakes will not hold up…. I was trying to limit any changes to the car until I have a bit of experience and learn more…
2018 SI

 

[st4xor]

Eric, have you returned to the track ? I am interestEd to know if you found a solution to the brake fade…. I am new to the track, ran 10 laps at Carolina Motorsports a few weeks ago and the brakes faded (factory brakes and fluid). I upgraded the brake fluid and installed hawk hps 5.0 pads and return for my first hpde day next week. I am guessing the brakes will not hold up…. I was trying to limit any changes to the car until I have a bit of experience and learn more…
2018 SI

I'm signed up for HPDE #2 on Shenandoah again next month, 6/10, so I have not been back out yet. I settled on some Carbotech XP8 pads for my next go after searching the forum and asking around (you can probably look through my posts to track my campaign). But this thread in particular (way more experience/skill than what I'm working with ) gave me some confidence that the stock brakes with some Carbotech/Gloc pads were worth a solid try. I ordered through the KNS brakes website and received my order (direct ship from Carbotech) about 5 days later, so it might be worth a shot if your track day is next weekend.

I got in touch with KNS a while back to ask if the Hawk HP+ compound (one step up in aggressive street/track focus than the HPS 5.0) would eventually be available, and was told this, which I think might be applicable to you:

Hawk has not actually released HP+ for our pad shape, but the important thing there (which I believe is consistent with both your first outting experience and mine) is that once you know the track (second outting and beyond) you are likely going to need a bit more of a dedicated track pad to be happy with the weight .

I'm only going to get out 1-2 times per year, so my current plan is to just keep a track pack+rotor set that I'll swap on a night or two before my track day.

KNS is local to you (Cary, NC) and the Carbotech shipping address was on NC. So it might be worth getting in touch with KNS to see if they can get you squared away before next week.

Hope you enjoy yourself either way, and looking forward to hearing about how it goes!

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Great post! I love seeing more guys get into track driving! It really is a unique satisfaction to go out and run a car around a track for 20-30 minutes at a time.

I saw you mention "mushy brake pedal". If your brake pedal is getting soft in the middle of a session and it returns to normal after some cool down that is a good indicator the fluid has boiled. Pad fade is kind of the opposite, the brake pedal will still be hard and feel normal, but the car won't stop like it should. Usually boiled fluid will give warning as the pedal travel will get longer and longer the more it boils. Pad fade isn't as forgiving and will usually go from fine to not fine pretty quickly.

If you get another soft brake pedal on your next event I would suggest trying a higher temp fluid. ATE 200 is decent stuff (dry boil point 536F) but there are higher temp fluids that can be had for similar price. My go to fluid is Motul RBF600 (dry boil point 594F) since it's often relatively cheap and available at many retailers. Also keep in mind that even though the brake fluid system is a sealed system the fluid can still absorb moisture past seals so even if you don't boil your fluid you should still bleed the system before your track season starts just to be on the safe side.

Look forward to hearing about how your next event goes!

 

[st4xor]

Heading out for round #2 at Summit Point Shenandoah tomorrow.

Carbotech XP8 front pads, RBF600 fluid, and rear caliper brass bushings from @Austin@Wunderladen Racing are all on tap to hopefully give some more braking confidence.

And I've added a Racebox Mini and a GoPro (well a cheaper knockoff actually) to collect some baseline data to review afterwards.

 

[st4xor]

Track day #2 was great! Another 4x20min sessions on Summit Point Shenandoah in the books.

Weather was awesome, high of 79 and partly cloudy. Great day to be out at the track.

I was very happy with the combination of stock braking system upgrades. Would highly recommend this pad/fluid/rear bushings combo to any and all. Brake pedal was firm and consistent every time I asked it to slow me down. No doubt I will find the limits again some day as skills increase, but brakes were rarely at the front of my mind during this outting (they did what I asked every time without complaint) so I would call it a success.

Surprisingly only used up about 1mm of front XP8 pad material (~11.5mm of material on 6mm of backing plate for brand new pads). So there are probably 6+ similar track days in a set of fresh pads? They are a pretty significant price bump over a Powerstop Track Day pad, but you probably get 3x the life. This was a pretty gentle track on the brakes, though--the three most significant braking zones were ~95, 92, and 78mph, respectively. So ymmv, but I was happy with both performance and anticipated longevity.

I decided to give myself a couple warm-up sessions to get my head back in the game before running data and video recording. Then add in some Racebox mini learning curve (it doesn't record data if you lock your phone screen) and that leaves me with just the 4th session that I have data+video to comb through.

From in-car instructor feedback late in the day, I suspect when I look through the data I'm going to see some complacency in a number of turns where I was not aggressive enough with initial brake application. So I expect this to be my "one thing" to work on next time I go out--undoing more of those road habits. I know what I'm _supposed_ to do from the sim world, just need to re-program the correct feel in a real car. Hopefully everything continues to hold up heat-wise when I ask a bit more next time out!

As next steps, I'm hoping to get out one more time later this year--probably to either Main or Jefferson at Summit Point. If I get out again this year, I will try hard to resist making other changes so I can focus on having the driver learn the car in some different driving conditions. Probably have at least one more track day left in the Conti tires.

Once the contis are used up, I can see a couple different pathways and I'm interested in hearing thoughts on the better way to go for someone who is going to be mostly casual track (2-ish track days a year) with daily driver miles. I could get another 300+tw tire and try to do some light suspension mods (pull pins + spc ball joints?) to get some front camber to try to get more than 3 track days out of a set of tires. Or the alternative, I'm debating a move to something like a ventus rs-4 (200tw endurance) which would probably overwhelm the stock suspension (I assume) and require some coils (which would get me front camber plates) and also result in more brake heat to dissipate. Rear sway bar is also likely not far off in either scenario. I'll only think about adding power some day if I'm committed to do the cooling and trans mods as well--not in any kind of rush there.

My overall philosophy is that I want to have quality track days when I have the chance to get out, even though they're not going to come in high quantity. And the other info I'll add for context is that my instructor gave me the option of requesting a move-up to the intermediate group at the end of this track day #2 (would have been a different instructor for the last session for a 2nd opinion). I said I would prefer to stay in novice for now so I can sample another circuit before moving up (there are a couple "novice only" days later in the year), but my next track day out with FATT may be the last in the novice group.

So what tires should I be planning for next?

My fastest lap of the last session for your amusement (sorry for the wind noise audio clipping, I'll clean that up next time):

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

I'm not familiar with the track but it looks like an absolute blast and your line looks very tidy!

Also I'm glad to hear your brakes are holding up to the heavy use

As for next tires I would take a look at your conti tires and see how evenly they've worn. If they're showing pretty even wear then I'd hold off adding in any extra camber. If they're showing outside shoulder wear then it would definitely be worthwhile pulling the locating pins.

You definitely can't go wrong with the Hankook RS4 but there are some comparable tires that are in the same price range. If the RS4 is your top prospective I'd also take a look at Maxxis VR1 or Falken 615K+. GRM actually has a really good article that covers a large span of track capable tires and is definitely worth the read: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/track-tire-buyers-guide/

 

[macrossranma]

How's the power stop track day pads compare to the xp8? I've been running the powerstop for the last 2 years with motul 5.1. No brake fade and good braking power, but pads down from fresh to 20% in 2 track days. Wondering if the xp8 have better braking power vs the powerstop

 

[st4xor]

How's the power stop track day pads compare to the xp8? I've been running the powerstop for the last 2 years with motul 5.1. No brake fade and good braking power, but pads down from fresh to 20% in 2 track days. Wondering if the xp8 have better braking power vs the powerstop

Definitely seems like the XP8 wears more gradually than the Powerstop in my experience.

In terms of "stopping power" or "feel", my overall impression this time around was that I was overall using less pedal travel than my first time out on the Powerstops (which was admittedly 9 months ago, so take my foggy opinions with a grain of salt). I definitely had more confidence this time out, which I might ascribe to feeling like I had more "margin" in reserve in pedal travel this time around. That being said, both compounds can put you in the ABS--its more just a question of how well they behave when they heat up (which might also bring in an element of preference/subjectivity). I've heard it said that "stopping power" really comes from your tire choice, and the braking system is just to dissipate and manage heat--and I think that applies here for sure.

Given that the cost per track day is much closer if you can get ~6 track days out of an XP8 (or equivalent g-loc r8, most likely) compared to 2 for the Powerstop pads (my experience aligns pretty well with your estimate of ~2 track days), I was overall happier with the Carbotechs and won't be going back (for the fronts--still running the Powerstops on the rear). But the Powerstops did better on the street. I may get some Carbotech 1521 pads at some point so I don't need to change out rotors when I swap out the track pads, but the Powerstops we're easier to just leave on for regular daily use.

I think the Carbotech/g-loc lines are definitely worth a try some point, but if the PS are working for you, then I wouldn't sweat it too much.

Happy tracking!

 

[st4xor]

Got my first set of power stop track day rear pads down to the squeelers this week. Two track days plus about 4k street miles (not much highway) is what they lasted for me. There were also pad bedding sessions sprinkled in there for two different sets of front pads. Based on the longevity of the PSTD front pads I went through previously, this seems about par for the course--was not a total surprise.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with this compound at the rear. Does what it's supposed to do on track, and doesn't make noise on the street. Also really cheap at ~$67 per set if you look in the right places (rockauto is usually good). So I bought two more sets of the same pad. Maybe I'll look at something else after I blow through those depending on how long they last.

 

[macrossranma]

On my my 4th set of PS track days now, but bad experience on my 3rd set. It was practically brand new but the fronts were totally gone in 2 15 minutes sessions. The rears are fine. I just put on another new set of PS rotors and track days pads again, will see how it goes next lapping day. If it's similar as the 3rd set, I'm switching the fronts with Carbotech ax6 for autox and daily, and swap to xp8 or xp10 for lapping days.

 

[st4xor]

On my my 4th set of PS track days now, but bad experience on my 3rd set. It was practically brand new but the fronts were totally gone in 2 15 minutes sessions. The rears are fine. I just put on another new set of PS rotors and track days pads again, will see how it goes next lapping day. If it's similar as the 3rd set, I'm switching the fronts with Carbotech ax6 for autox and daily, and swap to xp8 or xp10 for lapping days.

Depending on the track and driving style, I could definitely imagine "nearly new" PSTD pads being used up after 2x15 under extreme circumstances. I'm personally really happy with Carbotech in the front so far. And i've heard good things about G-loc offerings for this platform as well. So I think you are another prime candidate to move to an xp8/xp10 or R8/R10 in the front. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

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