Two Trackdays and a Round Trip (Sep 09)

So since the DIY service the last couple of months have all been about just using the car for its main purposes - tracking and touring. The trackdays were an evening session at Donington Park and the annual BoXa trackday at Rockingham. At Donington I still hadn't started tinkering with the adjustability of the KW suspension so just spent the session getting to used the more substantial grip that the KWs and Toyos have given the car. What I noticed in particular is that Old hairpin had become a full throttle corner from the apex and this was a major grin factor due to feeling the car moving around underneath me but at the same time feeling under control. Similarly the hairpin on the Melbourne loop could be taking much tighter than I could with the old set up. A 964 owning friend who came for a ride commented on how much more planted my car was on the fast corners compared to his which runs on standard suspension. However, I did notice that at the heavy braking points that the car had developed a trait of feeling quite squirrely at the back end i.e. losing grip and sliding about. So Prior to Rockingham I decided to check the rear rebound settings. This in itself is not a 5 minute job as both air box and the HVAC blower unit in the engine bay have to removed. And then the actual adjustment has to all be done by feel as you can't see what you're doing. I found that the rebound had been set at four clicks from hard so adjusted it to 8 clicks from hard. On the test drive I immediately noticed that the back end was more lively and a lot more responsive to throttle inputs i.e. be too heavy footed and it would step out. However, had this had any effect on the rear braking...well the Rockingham experiences say yes. Again Rockingham has some hard braking points and the back gripped much better because the softer rebound was allowing the shocks to keep the tyres in contact with the track better than when they were set harder. It's amazing what tiny adjustments can do to the balance of the car and even more amazing that given my limited driving skill that I can detect them. On track at Donington mixing it with the RS boys:

The new suspension set up (particularly the low RS ride height) and wider front tyres are now beginning to endow the car with 'trackday scars'. Rubbing inside the wheel arch on lock while cornering hard:

Rubbing on the wheel arch liners due to the lower height, more caster and then braking hard:

While I have to accept some of these as a consequence of the track biased set up, I've just put a pair of 3 mm shims on the front to move the wheels out slightly to see if it will reduced the rub on lock. I don't want to use anything much bigger than these as a] I would have to put longer wheel studs on and b] I might start causing a problem of the tyres fouling the arches:

After Rockingham we decided to take the 964 on a mini break. This involved driving down to Elevetham Hall in Hampshire to meet up with a load of other 964s and then across to Cornwall using a route of A roads. There we stopped a couple of nights and visited the Eden project and the cornish coast before travelling back home via the motorway network. A round trip of 750 miles. Apart from scraping the bottom of the car on a couple of speed humps, the car ran like a dream. I was surprised how comfortable the recaro seats were during long driving stints (the wife agreed). And where ever we stopped the car always attracted attention, particularly by kids who loved it. We even overheard a conversation between locals in the Inn we stopped at which went along the lines of "have you seen that lovely Porsche in the car park.....yes, but it don't half make a noise!". With other 964s at Elvetham Hall:

Resting overnight at the Cornish Inn;