Plaid handling improvements: better wheels, tires, brakes, suspension options

[lolachampcar]

The following posts are not gospel, just my opinion.

Wheels/Tires -
I'm going back Will They Fit and check 20x10" with 265/X ZR20 PS4S to look at wheel protrusion from the side of the car. 275s may be an option. I am happy with the ultimate grip of the 255/40 ZR 20s on my P90DL along with the balance. I would prefer better daily efficiency, ride quality, handling, off the limit acceleration/braking over at the limit acceleration and handling. I do an awful lot of the former and very little of the latter in a daily driver. The weekend car has Cup2s

I am concerned about the sway bars and torque vectoring as they will change balance. I'm hopeful that Plaid does not NEED the staggered rubber. In the past, the staggered rubber has provided oversteer margin and going square has made the car closer to neutral and easier to manage with the throttle (I know, more like torque demand but old habits die hard).

 

[lolachampcar]

Brakes
I am confused. I'm finding them hard to bed. Below are pics of front and rear rotors. The rears are coming along but the fronts are really funky. This is exactly what I am feeling while trying to bed them. It kinda is going like it should but then not really and the not really is the inability to get the fronts to behave like I think they should.

I'm way out over my skies here but I may have to apologize for previous comments on brakes. These front calipers are not the Brembo OEM type stuff we are used to seeing. They are either off brand vendor parts or Tesla's own. -Pure guessing starts right now- Either way, they are either not stiff enough to manage pad co-planarity or there is a horrible mismatch on piston sizing master/caliper or there is a bad pad/rotor material mismatch. The front and rear rotors appear to be the same material so I would think the pads would be as well. The rears are bedding in and starting to work well with uniform color which makes me think it is not rotor/pad material. Something is just not right as they should be bedding much easier and better along with working much better while they are bedding. It almost feels like the heat being generated is causing outgassing and an air hockey affect of the pad over the rotor. I'm sorry I do not have better input. I'm confused.

I'm thinking about buying a Draggy if it will do braking performance and doing back to braking runs with the Plaid and my PD on the same road/day/temp. My original P stopped better than my Maranello. The PD brakes were better (likely due to better rubber). The Plaid are, ugh, NOT.

I'm thinking about calling Performance Friction and seeing if I can get some pads made. If I can, then I would do aluminum hats, floating PF rotors and PF pads. That will nail down the source of the weirdness for me as it will isolate caliper performance from friction material. Hopefully the bedding will go better and it will not be necessary but Plaid front brakes are NOT PDL brakes yet

As for a caliper change, wow, that would be a tough one for me. Master/caliper area balance is hugely important to braking feel. Given these are strange something calipers, it is not like you can just pick up some uprated body material Brembo units and bolt them right on (while maintaining or slightly modifying piston to master ratios). This would be a ground up engineered adaptor mounts type of situation. Also notice that the calipers are way away from the rim bore and inner face so the mechanical envelope is way different than what you are used to. I guess that is good in that there is a lot of room to work with but I have actually created problems trying to do my own adaptor plates on bikes and would be slow to jump into doing them on something like this with WAY higher forces. On the plus side, SolidWorks has pretty good FEA capabilities these days making it easier to spot and fix weak points.

 

[lolachampcar]

Suspension
It is flipping massive cast aluminum stuff. The torque link in the back is perfectly placed for monster power. I think it is possible to now run less toe in on the rear and still not have rear steer on corner exit. The upper rear a-arm is now attached with two bolts through the pivot axle which makes it possible to shim out the axle mount from the chassis and reduce rear camber if necessary. Yiiiippppeee.

All load bearing joints appear to be metal on metal which explains the increased tire noise coming through the chassis. The car is quieter on most fronts but tire through chassis noise has increased on Plaid for me.

You will be VERY happy with the new suspension. I expect LRs to have exactly the same components (as this is the Tesla low part count way) so longevity is going to increase dramatically from good to excellent. Goodonya Tesla!

 

[lolachampcar]

Screen adjustments.....
I played with the manual settings thing and could not find something I liked. My attention span is short for this type of stuff so I just went "Sport" and removed the need to tweak sliders. It seems to work ok. I'm still not comfortable managing energy together with getting up on the wheel - ah - yoke so I've not gotten into at the limit corner entry. It does point well and it feels like this is mostly do to the front bar. There is the ole head slap side to side when you hit a bump/hole with one front wheel and the forces are transferred to the other by the big bar. I had that in my P+ and really did not miss it on my PD.

 

[Ormond]

Screen adjustments.....
I played with the manual settings thing and could not find something I liked. My attention span is short for this type of stuff so I just went "Sport" and removed the need to tweak sliders. It seems to work ok. I'm still not comfortable managing energy together with getting up on the wheel - ah - yoke so I've not gotten into at the limit corner entry. It does point well and it feels like this is mostly do to the front bar. There is the ole head slap side to side when you hit a bump/hole with one front wheel and the forces are transferred to the other by the big bar. I had that in my P+ and really did not miss it on my PD.

You must get up early to beat the heat in the hangar!

 

[omarsultan]

Brakes
I am confused. I'm finding them hard to bed. Below are pics of front and rear rotors. The rears are coming along but the fronts are really funky. This is exactly what I am feeling while trying to bed them. It kinda is going like it should but then not really and the not really is the inability to get the fronts to behave like I think they should.

I'm way out over my skies here but I may have to apologize for previous comments on brakes. These front calipers are not the Brembo OEM type stuff we are used to seeing. They are either off brand vendor parts or Tesla's own. -Pure guessing starts right now- Either way, they are either not stiff enough to manage pad co-planarity or there is a horrible mismatch on piston sizing master/caliper or there is a bad pad/rotor material mismatch. The front and rear rotors appear to be the same material so I would think the pads would be as well. The rears are bedding in and starting to work well with uniform color which makes me think it is not rotor/pad material. Something is just not right as they should be bedding much easier and better along with working much better while they are bedding. It almost feels like the heat being generated is causing outgassing and an air hockey affect of the pad over the rotor. I'm sorry I do not have better input. I'm confused.

It's funny you mention this as I was looking at my front rotors yesterday and they were looking a bit stripe-y, Back rotors look fine. not seeing any issues with braking so far. This is at ~1,800 mi.

 

[Dangerous Fish]

@lolachampcar Very useful thread, thanks.
The front calipers are certainly Brembo. Very similar to the 19z/20z. Have you not taken the pads out to read the numbers on the backing plate?

 

[uthatcher]

I'm not thinking there will be much in the way of using the rear to steer with this car. It really limits power until the yoke is on center, making it difficult to power out of a corner or have any kind of oversteer.

 

[MarcG]

I'm not thinking there will be much in the way of using the rear to steer with this car. It really limits power until the yoke is on center, making it difficult to power out of a corner or have any kind of oversteer.

Can't wait for track mode and reviews from folks like Randy Pobst!

 

[uthatcher]

Can't wait for track mode and reviews from folks like Randy Pobst!

He'll be at Tesla Corsa this weekend at Laguna Seca...I'm more than half tempted to make the trip up there.

 

[lolachampcar]

@lolachampcar Very useful thread, thanks.
The front calipers are certainly Brembo. Very similar to the 19z/20z. Have you not taken the pads out to read the numbers on the backing plate?

Shows you how far out of the loop I am with current OEM brakes. Once you go BeV you never go back and apparently do not even look at ICE again

I will do just that and pull the pads. If they are Brembo as you say and just a newer or different design, these things must be made to work correctly. Brembo does not drop the ball on such things (core business).

I do some quick searches but would appreciate any links on those calipers so I can educate myself.

 

[lolachampcar]

NISSAN OEM AKEBONO Front and Rear 14" Big Brake Kit, 09+ 370z

NISSAN OEM AKEBONO Front and Rear 14" Big Brake Kit, 09 370z is a direct bolt on affair giving you vehicle the necessary brake needs.

www.tunerzstore.com

These?

 

[omarsultan]

He'll be at Tesla Corsa this weekend at Laguna Seca...I'm more than half tempted to make the trip up there.

Me too

 

[uthatcher]

Me too

LOL, I've been to Monterey or Carmel (including a track day at Laguna) 3 times in 3 weeks so that's the only thing holding me back! That and I have reservations about running the car at the track, but I know if I make the truck up there I will do exactly that!

 

[Dangerous Fish]

Shows you how far out of the loop I am with current OEM brakes. Once you go BeV you never go back and apparently do not even look at ICE again

I will do just that and pull the pads. If they are Brembo as you say and just a newer or different design, these things must be made to work correctly. Brembo does not drop the ball on such things (core business).

I do some quick searches but would appreciate any links on those calipers so I can educate myself.

This is the 6-pot caliper used on Porsche models. It's very similar to the Plaid front caliper but not exactly the same so it's possible Brembo have altered it for Tesla or it's another caliper in their range. The Plaid caliper looks like it might be 4 pot?

 

[lolachampcar]

Time for a visit to Orbit Racing. My bud Rodger likely has an example of every Porsche caliper known to man. We just need to do some side to side comparisons.

 

[Aleks0404]

Plaid Front Brakes are 4 Pistons that was already confirmed.

 

[scrapps]

@lolachampcar Do you mind posting some more shots of the whole car with those wheels? I'm waiting on a red LR and was considering bronze or gold wheels. You're wheels look almost the same as my TSW Nürburgrings that I have on my 3, but I know a lot of other companies make very very similar wheels. What are yours?

 

[lolachampcar]

Electric Dream was spot on. The bleeders even say "Brembo" on them but old man eyes did not catch it the first time around. My buds at Orbit are going to hook me up with Pagid and a few others for some pads to try. Given they are Brembo, this should be a no-brainer to get something with a little more initial bite and probably dusting a bit more. Also going to gently slot the rotors with the pad change as well. Will report with any progress (or lack there of).

I'm working on the offsets to order the rims. Scrapps, The pic I took above was my spare from my previous car. Pics of the rims on that car here-

2015 P85D

These hit my value sweet spot. 10 lbs per corner less for an order of magnitude less than forged.

 

[FlatSix911]

There is .308" clearance front tire to upright on the tire radius.

Thanks for sharing the detailed photos of the suspension components... the tire clearance is very small and proper tire selection will be critical.