First Plaid Trackday

[Trompazo]

I took my Plaid to a road course today for the first time. Its a 2.0 mile track with lots of tight turns and heavy braking zones.

My setup:

20x11 wheels Front and rear
305/35-20 Goodyear F1 SC3 front and rear (no clearance problems at the front)
MPP front Upper Camber arms at max neg Camber
MPP front 400mm rotors
Gloc R8 front pads (havent put my RB rear pads in yet).
Track mode 45/55 and -2 on Stability control.

Results:

Car is very neutral and handles very well. I was 4 seconds slower than I got in a McLaren 720S last week, but the car is easier to drive. It didnt push anywhere with this setup, and did get a bit loose in a large sweeper if I entered too fast. Very happy with the handling.

By second lap I would get a warning that the brakes temps were high, but with these pads, they didnt demonstrate noticeable fade and felt consistent in 15 minute sessions. I would go with a higher GLoc pads in the future, and likely need the Unplugged air ducts.

I limited my sessions to 15 minutes due to the brake warnings, despite them feeling ok. But the heat in the tires were making them feel slower and lap times were not improving so there was no point in doing longer sessions.

The 15 minutes sessions in Track Mode didnt show any high battery or motor temps, just the brake temp warnings. The lap times were consistent until the battery got below 25% and then the power felt reduced but still decent.

The major issue with this car was how much battery life evaporated quickly. Each 15 minutes session would drop the battery down 25-30%. There was a ChadeMo charger 5 minutes away that I went to but it was painlessly slow. The closest Supercharger was 25 minutes away, so going there and back would be almost 1.5 hours total.

In summary, quite pleased with the cars first track day, but without a close Supercharger, it makes it quite annoying.

 

[Mash]

There is much more in the car available than 100-120kW average that you've spent.

M3P is 1/3 of Plaid usable power, but you can spend 250kW average driving really fast.

Driving hard you should be making 15 minutes session for the whole battery.

But it's always a good idea to start slow and safe. Plus it's a stock suspension, so much slower turns than 720s and much scarier high speed turns, I assume.

 

[Cal1]

Thanks so much for this review! Didn’t know the car monitors brake fluid temps. I will probably never track my car but it’s nice to know the handling is much improved and not the old mediocre beast of old. So definately not challenging a GT3 but among the best sports sedans? Do you think track mode is real and not a gimmick?

 

[Trompazo]

There is much more in the car available than 100-120kW average that you've spent.

M3P is 1/3 of Plaid usable power, but you can spend 250kW average driving really fast.

Driving hard you should be making 15 minutes session for the whole battery.

But it's always a good idea to start slow and safe. Plus it's a stock suspension, so much slower turns than 720s and much scarier high speed turns, I assume.

Thats dependant on the track. The track I was on was a 19 turn 2.0 mile track, so its closer to a kart track than a typical road course. Less than 14 seconds on WOT despite 1:52 minutes a lap, so on a typical road course it would be much worse.

 

[Trompazo]

Thanks so much for this review! Didn’t know the car monitors brake fluid temps. I will probably never track my car but it’s nice to know the handling is much improved and not the old mediocre beast of old. So definately not challenging a GT3 but among the best sports sedans? Do you think track mode is real and not a gimmick?

Its not brake fluid temps. I believe Tesla says its using a model to calculate brake temps, so its likely not accurate if you are using different rotors and pads.

Track mode can have a big effect on balance, in my experience on the Model 3. And in the Plaid, without track mode the stability control is way too intrusive.

 

[sandman1330]

I just did my first Tesla track day this weekend too, except in the MSLR.

Dead stock everything, this was a baseline run to see how it would handle a track day and whether it would be worth putting upgrades into the car for the occasional track day or whether to buy a cheap dedicated track car.

I was surprised how well it handled it, I only ran about 80% due to the stock brakes and tires, but my course is only 2.7km (1.7 miles), and the longest straight is only 1000 feet. I only hit about 160km/hr (100mph) as I started my braking early to account for possible fade, but aside from the hot brake warning, it didn't have any appreciable fade. After several laps I was still able to get the ABS to engage (though stock all season tires no doubt played into this.) I have no doubt if I upped the pace it would have been more of an issue.

I averaged 30% battery for each 20 minute session, and much like the OP, charging would be a good 1-1.5hr break. The way these guys run track days, I may be able to swing 2-3 sessions, run away for a charge, and make it back for the remaining session or two.

I only dabble in track days, so I think the next steps for me will be:

- Once the all season tires are shagged, I'll go to summer street sport tires on the stock 19" rims (separate rims for winter anyway);
- Brakes. I'm considering the UPP Large Sweep rotors and pads, perhaps with the brake duct kit and higher performance fluid.

That will probably get me to a point where I'd feel more comfortable pushing the car a bit harder without needing to get too serious. Does anyone have experience with the UPP brake kit?

 

[Cal1]

Its not brake fluid temps. I believe Tesla says its using a model to calculate brake temps, so its likely not accurate if you are using different rotors and pads.

Track mode can have a big effect on balance, in my experience on the Model 3. And in the Plaid, without track mode the stability control is way too intrusive.

So there's somewhere on the track mode display that indicates brake temps?

 

[Trompazo]

So there's somewhere on the track mode display that indicates brake temps?

Not in real time, unless something has changed.

This video explains it good around the 16 minute mark:

The car shows a dash picture where the battery, motors, tires and brakes change from blue to green to red, but not numbers.

But you can download the data with the video files, and other software on a laptop the files do show a large amount of data. But not in real time in the car. So its would be possible if they updated the program.

 

[Gninoked]

Not in real time, unless something has changed.

This video explains it good around the 16 minute mark:

The car shows a dash picture where the battery, motors, tires and brakes change from blue to green to red, but not numbers.

But you can download the data with the video files, and other software on a laptop the files do show a large amount of data. But not in real time in the car. So its would be possible if they updated the program.

Those temps you guys are talking about are in fact modeled. Once you modify the braking system in any way you might as well turn them off because they have very little correlation to the actual brake temps. I know this because we tested and compared data between the teamPGR car and Blakes car at Barber.

That said I agree R8's are probably not enough. We have run R10's and R12's and for 3 lap maxV running the R12s have been the best. We are regularly getting into the 800-900C range. No issues with life or overheating. After 3 laps with the car turned up the battery is cooked anyway, so nothing more required. When we run in 500-550hp mode the temps are in the 600-700C range - so R10's would be fine.2

The car does consume a lot of energy at full power - not much we can do about that except slow down haha. Barber has superchargers right outside the track now, Laguna just put in superchargers, Buttonwillow has several on site but not turned on yet. We definitely need more and better charging near the tracks to make it more fun. At ~550hp you can run the car for a 30 minute session without overheating and the car is a bunch of fun and it'll use ~50-60% of the pack, which is recoverable on a 250kW charger in less than an hour leaving a few minutes for cooling back down to get ready to run.

 

[Gninoked]

I just did my first Tesla track day this weekend too, except in the MSLR.

Dead stock everything, this was a baseline run to see how it would handle a track day and whether it would be worth putting upgrades into the car for the occasional track day or whether to buy a cheap dedicated track car.

I was surprised how well it handled it, I only ran about 80% due to the stock brakes and tires, but my course is only 2.7km (1.7 miles), and the longest straight is only 1000 feet. I only hit about 160km/hr (100mph) as I started my braking early to account for possible fade, but aside from the hot brake warning, it didn't have any appreciable fade. After several laps I was still able to get the ABS to engage (though stock all season tires no doubt played into this.) I have no doubt if I upped the pace it would have been more of an issue.

I averaged 30% battery for each 20 minute session, and much like the OP, charging would be a good 1-1.5hr break. The way these guys run track days, I may be able to swing 2-3 sessions, run away for a charge, and make it back for the remaining session or two.

I only dabble in track days, so I think the next steps for me will be:

- Once the all season tires are shagged, I'll go to summer street sport tires on the stock 19" rims (separate rims for winter anyway);
- Brakes. I'm considering the UPP Large Sweep rotors and pads, perhaps with the brake duct kit and higher performance fluid.

That will probably get me to a point where I'd feel more comfortable pushing the car a bit harder without needing to get too serious. Does anyone have experience with the UPP brake kit?

The MSLR has a lot of potential to be a good track car IMO. The limitation on the plaid is generally the pack, not anything else, so the LR should be good. It's possible without the carbon sleeved rotors there will be motor heat issues, but the main problem is getting a 'party' mode onto it so the car stability control won't cut in. On a Plaid of course that is resolved by running track mode. Everything else in the MPP Plaid catalog should work and make the car more fun/quicker for sure. Talk to Sasha and convince him to build a party mode/cooling controller!

 

[sandman1330]

The MSLR has a lot of potential to be a good track car IMO. The limitation on the plaid is generally the pack, not anything else, so the LR should be good. It's possible without the carbon sleeved rotors there will be motor heat issues, but the main problem is getting a 'party' mode onto it so the car stability control won't cut in. On a Plaid of course that is resolved by running track mode. Everything else in the MPP Plaid catalog should work and make the car more fun/quicker for sure. Talk to Sasha and convince him to build a party mode/cooling controller!

I know, right! It's the same car, just with less power. I'd actually argue it's better balanced in that regard, it's no slouch on power but not so much that it overwhelms the rest of the car.

I'm still holding out some hope that Elon's tweet awhile ago that said Model 3 LR would get Track Mode might extend to the MS LR... But if they end up making a party controller, that might just be the ticket too.

 

[Cal1]

So does track mode bring it closer to Porsche levels? Not expecting to keep up with a GT3 but how about a stock 911, Cayman?

 

[Cutch26]

Can you do a video of 0-60 times in reverse.. I know I’m not the only one wondering

 

[Mash]

I know, right! It's the same car, just with less power. I'd actually argue it's better balanced in that regard, it's no slouch on power but not so much that it overwhelms the rest of the car.

I'm still holding out some hope that Elon's tweet awhile ago that said Model 3 LR would get Track Mode might extend to the MS LR... But if they end up making a party controller, that might just be the ticket too.

Absence of toque vectoring on mslr is unrecoverable by any hacks.