S1E2 - Thunderschleife
Brakes
On the last trip out to the track I resolved to switch out the stock brake pads and have a better charger strategy than RV outlets and distant Superchargers. I was able to find a local Model X owner who regularly rents out his CHAdeMo adapter which reduced the distance from track to a Level 3 charger to just 7 miles. Having not learned my lesson on waking up early enough from the last day out, I started the first session with an 85% SoC and headed to the 50kW EVGo charger, returning with plenty to go until lunch. The brake pads were swapped for
G-LOC's R12 compound in front and G-LOC's R10 compound in the rear. The track was cold but the new brake pads did wonders for the car. Having run the R12/R10 combo on other cars before I was not surprised at all by how well they performed. Great bite, fantastic modulation, and hard stops all added up to give me a new found confidence in the car. Having previously inspected the one-track day old stock pads and been rather scared by them, I would personally recommend performance brake pads as a must-do upgrade even if you are heading to the track for the first time. I was pleasantly surprised that the pads were nearly silent on the way home from the track. I have the car's regen braking set to "HOLD" so this definitely helps as well. Now that the car's brakes are in a reasonably usable state we can move on to tires.
Tires
As mentioned in a previous post, I am taking modifications to the car step-by-step in the name of learning and "science". I would normally have already put fresh stickier tires on, but I wanted to see how the stock 235/35R20 tires would perform for the casual enthusiast just getting in to track days. The 2022 Model 3 Performance features 20x9" Uberturbine Wheels wrapped in Pirelli P Zero Elect tires. They are a 280tw tire and have a slight stretch for efficiency. They were not made for the track. At all.
For the first session, I lowered cold pressures to 32 psi all around and after checking in the pits the tires were all pretty evenly at 38 psi. At 38psi the sidewall rollover looked alright but I never got around to getting tire temperature readings in the second session because I ran into a small issue. The stock tires have very little sidewall. Very. Little. Sidewall. Coming out of Turn 6W I had a slight off, dropping the passenger front wheel on the "start" of the right side rumble strip at the kink. This is a mistake that many have made over and over and over again, with little to no repercussion. In my case, I blew out the sidewall on the right front and after closer inspection at the shop bent both passenger side wheels. I heard the initial impact and was able to drive away, so I hoped it was nothing but bottoming out. But by the end of the West Track front straight I could tell I had lost the tire. I limped it back to the pits to assess the damage. No fun.
Finding a 235/35R20 tire in the middle of nowhere Northern California is an exercise in frustration. I called over 10 shops to see if I could find
any tire whatsoever so that I would not have to call for a tow or come back the next day with the trailer. After what seemed like two hours of calling I finally found a no name tire with the correct size an hour away in Chico. Luckily, I had one of my best track buddy's there with me that day. A true friend who was willing to sacrifice a session and make the 2.5 hour round trip so I could drive home. The Goodtrip Tires (ironic, LOL) were noisy and shimmied the whole way home as the tech had trouble balancing the wheel and I do not recommend them at all. I could not even find a website for these off-brand Chinese tires but was thankful just to get home.
Data
At the end of the day, I put down a 3:41.36 with only 1.5 sessions. I am still getting used to the car and after reviewing the footage I will make the excuse (amongst many) that I did not have any clean laps, but this is all the data I have on it so I will mark it as the current "time". For reference, fast drivers in FR-S/GT86/BRZ on street tires run mid-3:20s. I am still quite a bit off the pace. This was also the first time using the
Garmin Catalyst camera and not just the data unit, and I was very pleased with the footage. The ability to review video data right after the session while waiting around at the charger is amazing and I cannot recommend this unit enough. If you are reading this from the San Francisco Bay Area, I rent out the shop Catalyst for $50 for a track weekend. The setup is super easy... you just need to have an appropriate 12V power source. If you end up buying a Catalyst™ from the shop I will also apply the rental fee as a credit towards your purchase.
Takeaways
The biggest disappointment of the weekend actually was not the bent wheel and blown sidewall. It was that I had not configured the in-car drive to collect Track Mode data. I am really beating myself up over this one. For the uninitiated (as I was), capturing data is as simple as adding a folder named
TeslaTrackMode to the drive. People pay thousands of dollars for data acquisition systems and having data like tire pressure, g's, brake temps, and power levels built in to the car, even with vague accuracy, is simply amazing.
The science experiment of running the OEM 20"s certainly blew up in my face. Luckily, I already had a set of 18" APEX EC-7 sitting here in the shop waiting to go on the car. For now, I am fairly happy with the way the stock suspension has performed but there is also a custom-valved set of KW Coilovers
and other parts waiting to go on the car. The planned modifications for the next day out are:
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18x9.5" APEX EC-7 with 265/40R18 Goodyear Supercar 3 - some performance tires should drop lap times by leaps and bounds.
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TeslaTrackMode folder on the drive.
Despite the blown out sidewall I thoroughly enjoyed the day. At the end of our lives we will have nothing left but stories, and that is what I walked away with this weekend. Spending the day at the track and bringing the car home in one piece is never a bad thing. The new G-LOC brakes were a great combo and I quickly learned the limits of the stock tires in a unique way. A huge thanks to
Turn 8 Racing and my buddy Andy for demonstrating how great the track community is. There has been a break in the action, but I am looking forward to getting back to the track on Memorial Day. Happy motoring!
