Pics from my Track Day

My fiance an I had a great time this Saturday giving the car a good thrashing, first time I've had the 996 on a track (got it last month) - highly recommend Bookatrack.com - and their Elvington airfield days! (for those in the UK) can learn a lot about the limits of your car without worrying about hitting anything. Just to let you know the 996 took most of the other cars 'round the circuit (some were not been driven too hard) -I did notice a lotus elise I chased was alot more stable on the fast sweepers than the 996 (60mph+) - my back end was a bit loose <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/hoganscrogan/elvington/index.htm" target="_blank">http://homepage.mac.com/hoganscrogan/elvington/index.htm</a>

It surprises me that the Elise was more stable anywhere than your 996. I was on the track with a brand new Exige race car last year being driven by an experienced club racer and my 99 996 was faster through most every part of the track. I have coilovers and was on Hoosiers but the Exige was way lighter than stock and obviously had a full race suspension. Great cat though. I would love to try one out on a tight track.

Got it a month ago, and already driving it on the track!! Wow, HoganScrogan, you've got courage. I'm still babying mine from last year. Regards.

Two Questions. 1) What kinds suspension do you have on your car? 2) Does this track have any left turns? All of your pictures show car turning right. Btw, nice pics

Mine has the 030 sports suspension, camera guy was only on a couple of corners - layout had lots of left and rights. New Elise 2 I was after, I could (just) keep up in the fast corners had to try hard as my back would not stick. Was up his **** on the lower corners and did get past on straight. BTW the brake fluid got really hot after about 8 laps (1.7 mile laps)

What tire pressures were you running? If your rears were at the factory recommended 44, I am not very surprised. That could easily become 55 hot -&gt; loose car.

You should definitely play with the tire pressures because setting at rcommended factory tire pressures and on the track psi's go way up which can cause slippage on the turns. If you spinout thats a different story(did that last time)-that's totally operator error not the car. I set mine at 36 rear 32 front. The 996 is really great on the track-very nice workhorse. Have participated in 5 DE's in last 6 months and so far so good. Did notice a oil drop the day after each DE event but that's about it-been asking the board if that's something to worry about. Regards. Mike

Only span out a couple of times but that was my fault as I was giving it large on the 1st/2nd gear hairpin to see if I could flick it through rally style, worked the third time Don't get me wrong I LOVE a loose car! Had 42f 44r in the tyres so this probably affected things - drives better in the road tho' I'm not going out trying to get the perfect line, I'm there to push it so a slippy rear is GOOD Only problem I had was with the brake fluid over heating, any suggestions?

I had my '99 996C2 at a track day at Portland International Raceway about a month ago. After the third session in which I was at the limit on a track that has some high speed, high G curves, I parked it in the pits for about 1 hour before my next session. When I fired it up again, I got A LOT of blue smoke. It cleared after about a minute. Very disconcerting. I checked the oil level..normal. The oil pressure during the next session was perfectly normal. Same thing happened before the final session. The car ran fine. Its not happened since, even at a track day at our local track in Vancouver. I had the oil changed before the track day in Portland, could they have overfilled it? Anyone had the same experience? I have just sold the car as I wait for my C4S, June build. Nothing like puffs of blue smoke from the back of a 996 to attract a crowd.

Hogan, It's hard for me to imagine that you could cook your brake fluid that fast but given that you did I would suggest: 1) If you are not going for speed anyway, brake more conservatively. ($0) 2) Replace fluid with something like Ford High Performance. ($30-50) 3) Replace pads with something like Pagid Orange. ($280-300) 4) Install Big Reds ($3000?) 5) Buy an Elise. Coming from Lotus it will never run long enough to boil the brake fluid. BTW, if you are getting your fluid that hot then your rotors must be burning up. Make sure and cool them down. They will warp.

[quote]Originally posted by HoganScrogan: <strong> Don't get me wrong I LOVE a loose car! Had 42f 44r in the tyres so this probably affected things - drives better in the road tho' Only problem I had was with the brake fluid over heating, any suggestions?</strong><hr></blockquote> Wow, 42f/44r, that's high! And I'm assuming these are hot trackside measurements, because if they're cold, that's humongously high! I was running 36/39 hot pressures on street PZero's at the track this weekend, and that seemed to work well. (Sure was noisy, however) About the brake fluid, how do you know it got hot? Did you check the temp, or did you lose brakes, or did the pedal get spongy, or what?

Hot tyre pressure Pedal got a little spongy and the fluid reservoir nearly overflowed, was up past the 'max' mark when I rechecked after first session., rear brake pads were also smoking when we stopped (I wasn't driving)there is a low speed corner you a braking to around 30mph from 120mph, then up to 60+ and back down to 20-30, did cool down laps and did NOT put the handbrake on when sat in paddock. Brakes still worked OKish I just had to ease off abit , S2000 I used before seemed to have more robust brakes. BTW I want to drive fast, just not worried about laps times, braking at last minute is fun

[quote]Originally posted by cooper996: <strong>I had my '99 996C2 at a track day at Portland International Raceway about a month ago. After the third session in which I was at the limit on a track that has some high speed, high G curves, I parked it in the pits for about 1 hour before my next session. When I fired it up again, I got A LOT of blue smoke. It cleared after about a minute. Very disconcerting. I checked the oil level..normal. The oil pressure during the next session was perfectly normal. Same thing happened before the final session. The car ran fine. Its not happened since, even at a track day at our local track in Vancouver. I had the oil changed before the track day in Portland, could they have overfilled it? Anyone had the same experience? I have just sold the car as I wait for my C4S, June build. Nothing like puffs of blue smoke from the back of a 996 to attract a crowd.</strong><hr></blockquote> Hi - I saw another example of this happening on a track day i went to recently. It was on an '02 Targa. It prompted a lot of interest and the owner of the virtually brand new car left the track day after only a few laps. I love the look of the new C4S but this sort of thing put me off a bit (never had any problems with my 993). Is this coincidence or a common occurence? Am I right in thinking that the GT3 engine is the same engine with larger capacity so it must be race proven already or are the stock 996 engines very different? Ajit.