Winton - RX8 Club Track Day

New Personal Best Lap: 1:50.06sec (same mods as last track day in December)

Results Here
Individual lap times

I did my PB in the first session of the day, the next sessions I was doing 1:53 lap times and my tyres started bubbling and blistering. I thought I'd call it a day and save the tyres.

Then I sat with Silas and stole some tips off simply watching him drive, wanted to try it in my car so I took it out for a final time and started doing 1:50's again. Should've sat with you way earlier to steal your driving skills Silas! haha

Here are some videos.. thanks for SenK9 for editing them.

In car compilation
In car ride
Random compilation

EXE-crew in Hot4's Issue 147

Just got news that our photoshoot that we did back in July with Jun Sawa for Hot4s magazine has finally been published. (Issue 147 out until January 2007 I think!) It includes a review of EXE-crew from pages 170-176. Here are just some pics I took of the pages, if you want to read it then go out and buy a copy now!

EXE Track Day 11th December 2006

I came into this track day with a few hiccups, the main one happened on Saturday when I bled the brakes with Shaun (senk9) and found that my front right wheel hub had a broken stud which made it two on that corner.
After tightening the remaining wheel nuts on very tight to make sure the wheel wouldn't come loose, Silas helped me bleed the final brake caliper on Sunday. That was also when I installed my straight through exhaust pipe (woo it sounds so nice!).



My personal best from last track day was a 1:58.5000 with my catback exhaust, 16" rims and whiteline rear adjustable swaybar.
I was aiming for around 1:54-55 this time around and when I hit 1:55 in the first session I was over the moon!

By the end of the day I had managed 1:50.5510 with Straight through race pipe, Whiteline strut brace + rear swaybar, AWR engine mount, CAI, WRX bucket seats and 18" rims.




Here is a break down of my laptimes, session 1 was riddled with yellow flags so I pulled in after 4 laps and everyone followed me in haha sorry guys.

Pratice
2:08.3550 1:59.5230 1:58.2990 1:58.6400

Session 1
1:59.3980 1:55.2750 2:11.7310 2:05.2700

Session 2
1:52.7980 1:52.0950 1:59.3480 1:53.5610

Session 3
1:51.3660 1:52.3650 1:54.6040 1:52.0440 1:52.0100

Session 4
1:54.0640 1:51.6280 1:54.2100 1:51.3600 1:50.7000

Session 5
1:55.5830 1:51.6070 1:51.0990 1:52.5940 1:58.8130 1:53.5910 *:**.**** 2:02.9260 1:54.2900 1:51.8200
1:50.5510 1:50.7510

Individual Session
1:54.7760 1:50.8510

A detailed list of lap times can be found here
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?11/12/2006.WIN

Differences to my laps from last track day that I noticed were that I braked a lot later and have improved my heel-toe so I can get the most of my engine braking now. Also managed to enter the sweeper without braking at 115-120km/h and exit at 110km/h whereas last time I braked before the sweeper and did the whole thing at 100km/h.
These 2 and a half month old tyres also gave me much better turning, even though they squealed and squealed, they kept gripping and turning where I wanted. I would love to try semislicks for the next track day and experience how they handle in comparison to these R-compound street tyres.


Thanks to everyone who turned up for the event and all of the EXE crew for helping it run as smoothly as possible. The morning scrutineering was pretty hectic but with everyone working together it was enjoyable and wasn't a drag at all.
Also thanks to Shaun for helping me bleed my brakes and Silas for doing some last minute fixes to mine and a few others cars, even though he was trying to reset on Sunday. Without you I probably wouldn't have been able to run on track day.
Bring on the next track day!!

Mtec Cosmos Blue Fog Lights

Ever since I got my HIDs, I never used my fog lights. I didn't like the yellowness of them and how they didn't match the HID colour.
So I've been searching around for good replacement halogen bulbs (didn't want HIDs in my fogs.. yet ) and read many good reviews on the Mtec Cosmos Blue bulbs. They're only rated at 4750K but in testing, the actual output was 4838K, higher than Philips DiamondVision which is rated at 5000K but testing proved it to give out 4552K light.

People were saying they're the closest halogen bulb to matching 6000K HID and there was even a long thread on Mazda3Forums showing pics of every that had them from the club.
Sure enough these bulbs turned out to be a very close match to the HIDs and I'm as happy as Larry

Can't get the real look of the bulbs on photo dammit, but here are the pics anyway.

BOMZ Racing Cold Air Intake

Bought and installed a BOMZ Racing CAI on Monday. It's an Injen replica. Initial thoughts are that it feels more responsive and has good pull through mid range. The expected and famous "hoover" sound is louder than I thought it would be. I already had removed the intake resonator ages ago and there was a hoover sound then, but with this installed it's at least double the volume now. That's not to say that it's only giving out annoying sounds.. I love the "pss" noise it makes when you change gears and hit the accelerator. Kinda like a BOV sound but only when you accelerate lol. Need to hit the dyno again to see what kind of figures this thing pulls, and to compare the power curve

New Tyres

Ahh one of my tyres (left rear) was damaged, it had a slash in the sidewall and was constantly going flat from it. Not sure how it happened, if it was sabotage or something..
Anyway after driving around on those tyres for a while afterwards, I noticed I was not getting the cornering performance I used to get, and that I couldn't keep up with the boys on our slow Sunday drives along twisty roads lol.

Here is part of the reason why.. from what I could see the tread on the tyres was still okay, but after looking at the inside of each tyre I realised they were almost bald.

So I went out and bought new tyres which have just been fitted for a day. Out with the old: Falken Ziex ZE-512 In with the new: Hankook Ventus RS2 Z212

http://www.hankooktyre.com.au/v2/products/product_detail.asp?search=uhpt&id=1172

Everytime I look at the tyre now I drool at how sexy the tread pattern is lol. They handle brilliantly too, have already noticed that the cornering capabilities are beyond what I ever had with the Falkens. Have to still see how they perform in the wet, but I believe they will be fine. Damn tyres cost an arm and a leg I'm more broke than ever.

WRX Bucket Seats

Yay a part of Merah lives on in my car!
Thanks Silas!