fleming23

Somewhat productive morning! I was able to get my just delivered Essex AP Racing front kit installed this morning. Was really pretty easy except I for the life of me could not get the brake line retaining clips on either side. Even removing the sensor bracket, wasn't happening... For now they are just left off, not sure if I'll attack it again later or not.

Big difference in brakes! These Radi-Cal calipers look like something from the future! I'll be honest, I liked the red calipers and big carbon ceramics purely from a cosmetic perspective. From a design and engineering perspective, these things are magnificent but do tend to get lost now behind the wheel face.

AP Racing Radi-Cal 9668 kit




Honestly, 25mm pads are insane. I don't know how long these will last but am very impressed with how massive these are. If nothing else, that much material must do a much better job absorbing and dissipating heat.




I have the rear kit on order as well so hopefully I'll be swapping the rear brakes out in a few weeks.

Once I got back home from bedding the rotors and pads this morning, I noticed my ported throttle body was sitting on the front porch. This was at most a 5 minute swap. Started the car, no codes. Hopefully my air fuel is good. I noticed one dyno that showed the air fuel actually went fatter with the ported TB, which I thought was weird. I am 100% okay with that as I have removed my Halltech intake as I was not comfortable with the 13.1+ air fuel after swapping on a 2017 blower lid. I'll need to strap the car back to the dyno and test it to be sure.

Pretty significant difference in transition inside the throttle body.

Factory


Tony Mamo ported


Finally, I installed an OMP HTE-R 400 halo, fixed-back, race seat. This was more of a safety thing than anything else. I wanted the halo protection should I ever find myself in the unfortunate situation making contact with an outside wall. I've seen too many stories from my local track with fatalities so hopefully this will be one more factor keeping me safe when I am out doing what I love!

Note - I purchased a few different seat mounts. I initially ordered the Marrad aluminum brackets but wasn't sure I liked how they mounted with stud extenders, so I ordered the Brey Krause kit made specifically for our cars. I did not like the BK mounts at all. With non-slider, side mounts, I could not get the seat positioned even remotely close to something that would have worked. I used the recommended BK R-9144 for my seat but could never get it to work, both in rail width as well as front to rear positioning.

Mock up







Now to brave the cold, wet, weather tomorrow morning and head off to Atlanta Motorsports Park for a little testing before my first USCA event in New Orleans next month.

5thGear

Outstanding! Will you switch the seat back and forth for street and track?

fleming23

Possibly, but not frequently. If I know I have some down time between events that is the plan. It isn't all that difficult, but with the seat so far back for me (6'0) reaching the rear bolts is somewhat difficult.

C4TrackMan

What seat bracket/rails did you end up using?

Mad Dog 24

Safety first! These cars run real race car times and speeds your doing it right! What's the USAC event in New Orleans, an HPDE or a race?

Looking forward to your opinion of the brakes although I could never talk my wify into it.

c5racr1

so what was your final seat set up? how did you get to the back bolts?

fleming23

I ended up using the Marrad aluminum brackets. They use post extenders to mount, but work well enough.

I can reach my hand behind the seat and finger-tighten the bolt, while sitting in the seat. At that point it is probably good but I used a crow's foot socket and tightened it just a bit more.

Yeah, the car is ridiculously quick. I'm running with the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car Association at NOLA. This is a competitive event but is structured in a time-trial format.

The brakes did a great job today, but I did have one instance in my last session where the pedal went hard and I swear I thought I was going into the armco. I think my mis-matched front/rears are not helping at the moment with the Girodisc iron rotors and Raybestos ST43 pads still on the rear. At least that is what I am telling myself... It was in the low 40s and damp all day so I didn't set any blazing laps. Oliver Gavin set a 1:25 lap in a Grand Sport but it was warm and dry in August to my 1:31 (I think, haven't checked my data yet, I literally just got home and sat down at the computer) with heat-cycled R888 tires and really cold conditions. I'll post some video later when I have a chance to review/cut it down.

fleming23

Here are a couple decent laps with as limited traffic as I was able to get. Not too bad. International sports car driver Oliver Gavin, lapped AMP in a 1:25 in a Grand Sport so I'll take my 1:30ish times with these conditions.

fleming23

This short clips shows the pedal going hard as I came around T10. I am hoping the rear pads, combined with the heat-cycled 888s, and overall shitty weather conditions are the reason for this. As I begin down the hill, the pedal goes pretty hard and you can see the car headed straight for the wall. I stood on the brakes as hard as I could (you can see the red bar is only around 2 bars though) to try and slow the car at which point it then makes the turn. It doesn't look like much, but in my mind I was preparing to make contact with that wall.

Edit - if you watch the steering input, you can see me react to the brake pedal. Just before I begin to make the turn I get on the brake so the steering input was relatively straight. When I realize the pedal is hard, I make a quick correction to straighten the car out a bit as I was concerned I was going to rearend the car ahead of me and need to make an evasive maneuver.

Mad Dog 24

That's a pucker moment! I wonder since the new calipers there may of been a small spot of air caught. I will guess your already planning to bleed them again.

I wish Optima would come to the Northeast and WG. Jimmy Day started the Optima Challenge back on 08. His main co. FMB Marketing handled the Battery marketing and it has taken off well, great guy. I had a car in his booth at SEMA in 09 and then we ran it at the Challenge in Pahrump home of the Ron Fellows Corvette test track. Jimmy's brother Mark had a C6 Z06 street \track that was bad ***, black and red!

Have fun, good luck

fleming23

I'm not sure it was air related, but I'll likely bleed everything one more time regardless, especially when I replace the rear kit.

Yeah, Jimmy is a nice guy and they, FM3, definitely are involved in many of the "car events" that take place over the summer (Power Tour, Cars & Cones, LS Fest, Optima Street Car, etc.) and they all are generally well put together.

Picture from yesterday's event with the new AP Racing kit.

fleming23

I wonder if the 18" wheels/tires are throwing off the programmed bias in certain conditions. Like if you are on the verge of ABS under heavy braking, there is a difference in diameter with the 18" wheel. I question if that doesn't play a role in my hard pedal. I experienced the same thing at an autocross recently with the same wheel/tire combo, but on a different front rotor/pad combination.

It only happened once yesterday, and it was in my last, and fastest session. It has me questioning if I got up to the point where I was mechanically exceeding some limit programmed into the ABS. As you can see from the second video above, and discussed in the link below, both times the steering was relatively straight leading up to a turning point so it wasn't as though I had a bunch of steering input cranked into the car. I hate not knowing, especially when a hard pedal in a heavy braking zone can have serious, potentially fatal, consequences.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-ice-mode.html

Bill Dearborn

Sounds like you got into an ICE Mode situation. Hard brake pedal with reduced stopping power is the opposite of long and soft pedal due to air in lines. I had that in my C6Z at VIR 3 different times going into T1. Went off the end of the track one time at about 90 mph (have that on video).

One thing you need to remember to do which isn't easy when you are in the situation is to try and make the turn. Although it doesn't feel like it the car is slowing and getting it rotating into the turn will scrub more speed. No need to make the turn perfect just keep it on the pavement and rumble strips using all of the pavement to get the car back under control. If there is a run off area use that. We call it extending your braking zone by carrying braking past the apex to the track out point. Some turns it is easier to do than on some others.

Another big thing to try and remember and this is really hard. When you first recognize you are in the oh **** moment, take your foot off the brake and then get back on the brake again. Supposedly, lifting off the brake takes the ABS out of ICE Mode. That is really hard to do when your instincts are all telling you to shove that brake pedal down to the ground.

You can practice doing both of those things by choosing some turns on a track you are very familiar with and spending some time going in at reduced speeds extending your braking zone so you get competent at it and practicing lifting off the brakes and reapplying them. Start slow and work up in speed. You never know you may need the skills for more than braking issues. There could be issues with other cars that you need to avoid and all of that kind of practice could come to good use in the future.

Bill

fleming23

Yeah, it certainly felt just like ICE mode. I had it happen a week ago during autocross and think I posted the thread above of experiencing that happening. Unfortunately, and I assume you are close to the same, most of us serious track rats don't allow for much room to lift off the brake and still have ample room to make the corner. It is certainly a difficult thing to get your mind to do. I have not seen many examples of ICE mode on a C7 so it makes me think my combination is contributing to this. Could be the used Toyo 888 or aggressive pads. I am still using the Raybestos ST43 rears until AP Racing releases their rear kit. Those pads have a pretty aggressive initial bite which might trigger the issue when I jump on the pedal. It might not even be an issue if I braked differently but I tend to grab lots of pedal as late and hard as possible. I wouldn't think it would play a role, and supposedly even helps eliminate it, but I also have the DSC controller.

schaibaa

Could this be the tire spinning on the wheel? I run 18s and even with knurled beads my tires do rotate some. I've measured them and it's not too much - maybe 1/8th turn per lap. I could imagine the tires spinning on the wheels feeling like no brakes?

fleming23

I haven't marked the tire/wheel but have seen others show this happening, so I can't say for sure. The pedal goes really hard so if it is due to tire slip, it is causing the wheel speed sensor to induce the ice mode. I ran the exact same wheel/tire combination at Road Atlanta Thanksgiving weekend and was braking much harder with no issue so I wouldn't think it should be a tire slip issue for that reason alone.

The past two events where I have experienced this, one autocross and one road course, were either on a relatively loose surface or pretty cold ambient temps. It could possibly be an issue where I am out braking the mechanical grip of the tire triggering the hard pedal....I just can't say for sure which is frustrating.

Ultimately, that will be the last time I run on the Toyo 888. Those tires will be removed this next weekend and a street tire will be installed to comply with the 200TW tire rule for the series I will run with next month. I will try to get back to the same autocross course on the 26th to do another test on the BFG Rival S and see if I have any better results.

OptimaJim

Hi Mad Dog 24, that's feedback we hear quite often on our scheduling from every part of the country that doesn't have an event within a few hours drive. The challenges Jimi has in putting the schedule together start with the series being relatively-new (we're only in our fourth full season). As such, there are a lot of other races, schools and events that have longstanding dates locked up at tracks around the country, which does limit our options. Our series format also requires a lot of paved tarmac for the PowerStop Speed Stop Challenge and Detroit Speed Autocross. There are some facilities that just don't have enough paved space to accommodate us and I'm not sure if the Glen is one of them or not.

Even if we can get past those hurdles, we need the track's available dates to work with the rest of our schedule, as many of our regular competitors will run three or more events throughout the year. These folks are amateurs and we really can't ask them to run at Charlotte Motor Speedway on one weekend and Auto Club Speedway the next, just because those are the available dates.

We're also looking for venues that we know will produce a strong turnout and three of our seven events (NOLA Motorsports Park, NCM Motorsports Park & Road America) have already sold-out for 2017 and two more are very close to selling out. We have hit many areas of the country over the past three seasons and compiled a pretty good database of where our competitors are coming from. We're also looking for people who are willing to go to Las Vegas, if they earn an invite to SEMA and the OUSCI from running in our series. If they can't make their way down to NJMP from New England, they're probably not going to make the cross-country trek to Vegas.

Even as I look at our registrations right now for our New Jersey event, it paints a pretty compelling picture of where folks in our series come from:

Ohio 9
Illinois 4
Tennessee 4
North Carolina 3
New Jersey 3
Pennsylvania 3
Massachusetts 2
Maryland 2
Michigan 2
New York 2
South Carolina 2
Texas 2
Virginia 2
Connecticut 1
Delaware 1
Florida 1
Indiana 1
Canada 1

So even if a track in New England (or New York) could physically accommodate the series, had a mutually-agreeable date available and a reasonable rental fee, would we be better off scheduling another date in the central part of the country, where we know demand is high and we've already sold out three different dates? Dragweek and Power Tour probably stick to the middle of the country for similar reasons.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries
www.DriveOPTIMA.com

schaibaa

Yeah good points -- I think a slipping tire would look the same/similar to the wheel speed sensor as a locked up tire. The only thing you might be able to do is a put a Go-Pro pointed at the tires and see if it happens? I would like to learn more about the issue - I've never had it happen and would like to know how to resolve it if it were to happen.

If different pad compounds were used, that could make some sense, but I would expect the ABS to work properly if just one or two wheels are slipping.

When I changed over to the AP racing brakes, I tapped the ABS module with a rubber mallet and was able to get a few more air bubbles out of there. I got ABS to engage 3-4 times on the street, came back and bled the brakes while taping the ABS module with a rubber mallet, and did this 3-4x just to make sure no air was in there. Not sure if it helps or makes a difference, but I've never had the pedal issue.

rwheelz

This is definitely ice mode. Learn what it is and how to handle it. It caused me to go off track. It almost caused me to go off the track again in the same spot, but luckily I had left some extra margin because I was trying to figure out WTF was going on!

Mad Dog 24

Jim, Interesting and applause for such a successful program. Gives these great drivers and cars something to do with their skills. I understand the issues and I will throw this out for your investigation if you choose. WG would most likely be VERY expensive and booked also its in the middle of no-where! I was invited to run at this track http://nyst.com/ this summer. It is located more south east of the state (closer to NJ, PA, CONN. ect.) so a bit closer to your core registrants. A couple hand full of track guys are renting it for a day in July so I suspect its very inexpensive as my portion is only 300. In comparison a couple hand full of guys renting WG would be probably 2k each per day!

Good luck with it all I will keep an eye on the events. It would be fun to meet face to face a bunch of these guys I talk to more than my wife sometimes! Sorry as I just realized this is way off topic.