New Geo, New Shiny Bits, Another Track Day, Now Need New Discs!
Another track day down for the year. Anglesey GP this time with Circuit-Days and we got lucky with the weather in the morning allowing for a few hours play in the dry before the rain came in the afternoon.
In prep for the day a few bits of house keeping where required on the Mclaren. A new set of Nankang AR-1s, these remain my tire of choice based on grip (in the dry), availability and price point. Nankang are due to launch an even better tire in the UK called the CRS but im worried they won't have the 235/35 and 285/35 sizes but lets see come 2024 when they're due to hit our shores.
For those who've read my past reports, we've played previously with the alignment on the 600LT and added more negative camber. Knowing the likes of Robert @ Apex are running even more with good results we thought we'd add more and test at Anglesey.
Stock works out at -1.75 Front and -1.5 Rear.
First Track Geo we tested resulted in -2.25 Front and -2.0 Rear. This did improve especially with the wider front tyres adding an extra 10mm each side (this can be achieved with our spacers for those wanting to retain 225 Front Trofeo)
For this second experiment we wanted more at the front and managed to get -2.8 Front and retained the -2.0 Rear.
Adding more negative camber to the Mclaren is quite simple, you simply need to add washers to each of the bottom wishbone fixings. For our first geo test we had two M8 stainless washers per bolt. With the new geo we applied four per bolt which is roughly 5mm.
For fun we decided to weigh the car with no driver and a 1/4 tank of fuel.
Corner weights were actually pretty decent without any work. Total weigh in was 1390kg vs the quoted kerb weight of 1404kg from Mclaren.
Another little addition in development as a potential product, is our fire extinguisher kit. We've designed a mount which fits to the existing seat to tub mounting points.
Details of the development will be a later blog write up. Unlike other mounts the design is flush through out the whole width of the mounting between the carbon tub and OEM seat fixing points front and rear.
Coming from a background in Lotus, we saw the importance of having an extinguisher that didn't extinguish corrosive material for the aluminium tub. We've seen the results of a traditional fire extinguisher churning out basically a mess of powder and material, yes it does the job, but post 'rescue' its a ball ache to clean up! So we chose Lifeline Zero 360 which is great for fire suppression but bears no mess or corrosive material on usage.
With all the new bits and bobs sorted onto Anglesey GP :)
As always the Mclaren 600LT performed brilliantly, weirdly no oil top up's needed for the day, im getting the feeling that the oil top up's seem more common on circuits whereby you're at high speed for long periods for example at Silverstone not uncommon to consume a litre of oil in a day!
Look at the HEAT WAVE coming from the top exit exhaust :) The new geo had a positive effect on turn in and further removing understeer. However, the rear feels more playful than ever, given the rear camber remains unchanged the thinking is the increased grip of the front effecting balance at the rear which promotes oversteer.
Needless to say the car felt more sideways than ever before and got recognition for our infamous number plate! When it comes time to change tyres we will test the 305 width at the rear and this should make a material difference to exit speeds.
Post track day we conducted our usual inspection, as feared our rear discs had basically died so need replacing.
The fronts are still good but the rears are dead. There are many ways to test carbon disc wear, the primary is to weigh, but as you can see from the picture if the texture is super rough then the discs will kill the pad. Either way weight or surface, one or both methods will indicate if they're dead. These are dead.
We generally stock OEM carbon discs so a swap is in order before our next test day. Happy to report the Endless pads remain awesome on track and on measurement have 9mm pad left after three track days. This is phenomenal wear and we continue to be impressed by Endless albeit having to ignore the brake squeal at times!
So whats next - Well the fire extinguisher mount was rock solid, we have a few more adjustments and then hope to productise. Anglesey also reminded us how ugly the OEM tow hook looks, so we'll pick back up our previous work on designing a better solution for those that like shiny things (like us) but still retaining or improving the products function.