No time to mess with Desire's heart delight. Desire just have to wait a bit as behavioral negative reinforcement . Desire would not be ready for the last two club days of the season. The weather is looking up and the Porsche is going to the track, with or without blue tape.

Interesting to find these little sabotage nail holes on the brand new Nitto NT01s.



Just checked the forecast again and Sunday is now looking a bit damp. You just can't trust the weathermen especially they are cilvil ...

 

I love how they try...

 

Lol, can't wait to see some footage of the GT4 on the track.

 

 

Wait a minute...
Those holes show up on the tire picture on the Nitto web page:
https://www.nittotire.com/competitio...d-course-tire/

 

They are the strangest thing I seen on tires. I haven't given much thought to them. My first impression is they were used to degas air pockets. They are certainly not injection ports as any will leave behind outies opposed to innies. They are quite sparsely distributed.

I now think they are left behind from the standoffs in the molding fixture that support and center the tire carcass.

Interestingly that all the extreme summer performance tires I bought for the Mini are all made in Japan.

 

Our track team's AV engineer (I ) did spend some time juyrigged a setup for the GoPro. I used parts from our track team's vast inventory.

I picked this for the base as none of the GoPro bits from the I paid extra kit are of any good. None supports horizontal rotation as I came to realize


all the GoPro mount parts are more the less crap





I used some automotive strength foam tape and cable ties to secure the Ram Mount ball base; I chose the location carefully so to minimize reducing the already limited rearview visibility


with the great articulation afforded by the Ram Mount I can adjust the camera to be as out of the way as possible


here I swung the camera as close to the passenger headrest as possible

 

I am glad it is over, for the GT4 that is. Our track team spent 2 days this weekend at Oregon Raceway Park for the last club days of the season. The forecast was looking very grim especially for Sunday. On the way to the high country in Friday afternoon the sky looked ominously dark and rained hard. We expected some shower but gradual clearing as the day progressed on Saturday. Sunday was forecasted showers starting with rain overnight.









there were no less than 5 Porsches including mine on Saturday; this is another GT4






We are glad the track initiation for the GT4 that has only 4000 miles is over. It is officially track broken and there are battle scars to prove it.






this diesel rig can't be cheap


this $11 investment did pay off but I pulled the tape off for the next day fearing the mess it would leave after heavy rain





on Sunday only this 997 GT3 and I shared the track


these were the g-forces from Saturday where we ran CW


the G-forces were higher for Sunday afternoon as I was faster and used more gears; we ran CCW that day


I thought that going from the FWD Mini to the RWD Porsche would be a steep learning curve. I became at ease with it very quickly. I drove like I stoled it and the front tires took a good beating. The car got quite squirrely too like the Mini when driven hard. Before driving the GT4 hard, I thought it is my Mini not being well sorted.

By Saturday I was using more gear changes to optimize the power and hence better speed. I was also doing some left foot brakings. There were 2 scares and one could end bad at the off camber turn after the front straight when the car got squirrely and it was very close to the edge of the track braking from ungodly speed in 4th while heel and toe into 3rd.

We put in 300 miles in two days and I drove more than anyone else.

 

 

Both are track cars. It would be such a shame if I never take the Porsche to the track and I kick the bucket. I think the Porsche will be more of a track car as I simply don't care to drive it on the roads around town here.

ORP give cars high G loads because of the crests and valleys as well as on and off camber turns. The Pilot Sports Cup 2's are very good but spendy. ORP is a difficult track with a lot of nuances, not to mention a lot of turns are blind and when you realize which way it goes its already too late.

 

Those holes in the nt01 are where you are supposed to measure tire wear, full slicks have the same holes for measuring

 

That make sense now. As the tread blocks are so big it is close to slicks.

 

Here is some back of the envelop calculation of the Porsche's versus Desire's dietary needs. Desire intakes a gallon for every 7 miles she runs. That is 7 MPG.

After driving half a day I checked the fuel gauge and were quite surprise the needle didn't go down as much as I expected. However like most cars the 1/2 way point typically is more like 1/3 or worst 1/4.

The Porsche ran 300 miles and consumed ~49 gallons. That is 6.12 MPG. So Desire certainly deserves the flying mini hog title.

 

Here are some fotos of the cast of cars this weekend:

Miata with Jaguar V6 engine
Palatov all wheel drive race car with Hayabusa engine and gearbox
BMW 4 doors F80? M3
three Z28 Camera
997 Carrara 4S
some 911 convertible
some older watercooled 911
2 Porsche GT4 including mine
Porsche 997 GT3
Ariel Atom
gen 1 Cayman (S?)
some Acura track car that have seen a lot of track days

The three Z28 Camera always ran in a group. They are quite fast from my perspective in the morning of my first day driving the GT4 and second day in CW direction on this track. They were not exactly running away from me. The F80 M3 went off track quite early and rolled two tires off the beads leaving one turn with yellow flag all day. Thankfully the car is OK. The Ariel Atoms is the first time I witness first hand. It is very fast as it has 3x the HP/weight compared to my Porsche. He lost the gas cap so was out of action for nearly half the day. It turned out it was lodged between the passenger seat and the frame - a bad mistake that costed.

I rode in with the lady instructor in her gen 1 Cayman, and I am very impressed with her driving skills. The Palatov (and the custom mini enclosed trailer) is very new and had some rubbing problem on one front fender. The owner from New York hung around both days and only drove like 2 laps - such a shame. The Miata only made a brief showing.

We are like a family and we have lunches and dinner together. I am still meeting many members.










In all there were about 11 cars out on Saturday and only 2 cars on Sunday. It was fine by me as my goal was to get to know the track and the car without causing too much paint damage onto it.

 

It looks great, and yes the fuel consumption shows you been on that pedals a bunch. The G force are awsom.

 

 

The thing is don't believe every thing Clarkson said on Top Gear and the infamous video of his loose face fluttering in the wind. OK, his loose face fluttering in the wind is the most candid negative bit of open wheel/cockpit of cars like this. The owner of the Atom was very candid of the negatives of the car - that it is an aerodynamic mess because of the uncovered chassis frame. According to him anything above 100 MPH the air currents become very turbulent.

I was very surprised it sports a GM 4 cylinder turbo drivetrain. The problem with driving open cockpit open wheel car in low ambient is you should wear a wetsuit. I think it was one main reason the Palatov owner didn't drive on Sunday. It was breezy and I was glad as the strong wind and high elevation helped dry out the track and stayed dry while most of Oregon was rained on.

 

 

I too like my cars with 6 sides. I owned a first gen Miata with hard top option, and I decided no convertible or even sunroof from there on. I know all too well what is like on a performance bike with no sides to protect you from harm.

 

This happened in late afternoon on the second day driving CCW. I was tired by then after a very long session. I hugged very close to the track edge at the braking zone on the Casspell Straightaway going into turn 16 which is slightly off camber. The car got squirrelly and nearly went off the track before turning in. It was the most unsettling moment of the whole weekend of driving. Of any places going off track at ORP, this is the worst location especially for high power cars. I actually have no idea of the top speed there after I redlined at 3rd and accelerated briefly in 4th. There is no time to look at the speedo braking at the most dangerous turn of the track.

It is at 1:50 in the video.


I didn't spend more time setting up the GoPro. The outside scene was overexposed as the camera exposure was heavily weighed by the cockpit. The mic placement was not ideal as it picked up too much gearbox sound rather than the engine whine, giving the impression the engine was reving low.

 

To get some idea of the top speed at ORP this weekend I make reference to this gear shift point table, which I infer gives the optimal shifting RPMs for each gears. I shifted at too high RPM in the lower gears.


The longest straight there is much shorter than either at PIR.

 

That can't be right. "I infer gives the optimal shifting RPMs for each gears" in the right most column.

Even when I was writing the post I felt it was wrong, but my focus was the max MPH in 3rd and 4th gears, to estimate the speed I achieved the moment of braking. While forced induction cars like the Mini has much flatter torque curve than atmospheric engines, for most properly designed gearbox ratios you typically shift very close to the red line for optimum acceleration. While there would be some adjustment to be made when you are RPM bound near the braking zone on a straight you might benefit by upshifting a bit earlier.

I just want to post my brief thought and correction to the above post.

BTW, this is a good video of Randy Pobst taking it through the Streets of Willow (starting 14:28):

To echo on Randy's remark, I too was surprised in the bone stock configuration the GT4 exhibits quite a bit of oversteer understeer and I thought it was my turn in techniques. Watching Randy I can see I have a very steep hill to climb to be worthy of the car, and hopefully without wrecking it in doing so.

 

Getting the GT4 out to the track safely took a lot of effort. One of which is the trailer setup for safety as well as not to kill the lovely Westfalia James Cook mini motorhome. The James Cook has a towing capacity of 5000 lb and 500 lb tongue weight limits per spec. In truth by American standards it is very optimistic and I know it all too well. It takes a lot of patience and care to tow a heavy load that is at the limits of the vehicle capacity. The motorhome alone is 4 tons, and adding a car trailer with a light road going car you are adding more than 1/2 of its weight. In all you are over 12,000 lb.

I didn't want to spend money on a tow hitch with built in weight scale. I relied on observing the suspensions of the tandem wheels of the Trailex and the degree of sag of the James Cook by eyeball. The proof of the pudding is to take advantage of a DOT truck scale.

I placed the Porsche (and the Mini) by these simple observation. I then planned my trip to ORP to weigh the road train using a DOT truck scale that I know is always closed during Sunday evening onwards until Monday.

It is a short scale and hence perfect to obtain each set of axles, and the two axles of the motorhome. All the numbers can then be used for sanity check to determine the tongue weight as well as the overall weight. These are the numbers I recorded.

• Porsche GT4 near empty fuel tank
• Trailex trailer with 4 empty 5-gallon fuel jugs and no wheels on tire rack
• James Cook motorhome with nominal full potable water and waste water and half full fuel tank; and nominal short trip payload

numbers from the DOT weight scale:

• Front Axle: 3350 lb
• Front + Rear Axles: 8150 lb
• Rear Axle: 4800 lb
• Trailer (both axles): 4100 lb

I know the James Cook motorhome weight very well as it is very close to 8000 lb loaded for a short trip like this. Here are the cross checks:

• James Cook front axle plus rear axle = 3350 + 4800 = 8150. This is exactly as the weighed number of 8150 lb with the entire motorhome on the short scale.
• The trailer weight is 4100 lb. I know the GT4 empty should very close to 3000 lb. This gives the car plus trailer weight of about 4200 lb.
• I also have about 100 lb of stuff in the trailer tool box, which gives the unhitched trailer weight of about 4300 lb.
• This gives the entire road train weight of 12,450 lb. Comparing the aggregate weight from the actual measurements which is 12250 lb, this results in calculated tongue weight of about 200 lb. This is as close as I can hope for doing all by sight.

Since I plan to carry a full set of wheels I would likely need to make some fine adjustment. The easiest is to move the Porsche slightly aft on the trailer.

this photo shows the suspension compression on the James Cook as well as the tandem axles of the trailer - which are just about perfect


I did a same exercise with Desire on the trailer and the results were very similar. Desire weight no more than ~ 200 lb than the Porsche from recollection.

Desire as payload on the road train



numbers from the DOT weight scale (with Desire + four 15" wheels):

• Front Axle: 3450 lb
• Front + Rear Axles: 8250 lb
• Rear Axle: 4750 lb
• Trailer (both axles): 3900 lb

You can see that the total road train weight is 12150 lb with Desire plus 4 wheels vs the GT4 without extra wheels of 12250 lb. Desire is an overweight hog for sure. She has thick pork skin so stands up well to fat shaming.