Track Weekend at Buttonwillow’s Circuit Track

[nitepjony]

Hey all!
I wanted to make this post to talk about my recent track weekend at the Buttonwillow Circuit track, as well as discussing future steps for my car to make it better on track.

This was an event hosted by NASA. This was my second ever NASA event and second event track event. They are an awesome organizer and I had a lot of fun learning the track. I was in HPDE1 with an instructor for the first day and most of the second day. Luckily during the last 2 sessions we had a double and my instructor gave me the go ahead to ride solo. We ran a double session where we run a session, go back to grid while HPDE3 and 4 do their thing, and immediately after we go back. At the end I was promoted to HPDE2!

The circuit track was definitely fun to learn and there was a steep learning curve as Intook turn 8 a bit too fast and went off track my very first session. But immediately afterwards I got the hang of the track pretty well. Once again thanks a lot to NASA for hosting this event. It was very structured and fun to attend once again. I do have plans to return to Buttonwillow to take on their Classic track in October.

Next I want to talk about my cars performance. My car is a non-pp GT, meaning it had completely inadequate cooling for the track. Luckily I had some cooling mods installed before I took on the track. I had the OEM PP transmission cooler and the MMR oil cooler. I also had an aftermarket oil temp gauge installed to track my oil temps. My tuner also tuned my car to force my grille shutters open and to give me the DH oil temp algorithm to prevent limp mod. I also have the PP undertray and fender liners to give airflow for my oil cooler and my front brakes. I also swapped out to Powerstop Z26 pads on the front and rear. Car comes with the 6 piston front brembos from factory. I was really pushing my car this weekend much to the dismay of my all season 255s. Here are my temps near the end of my second day, peak temps I saw on track.

Ambient Temp: 110 F
CHT: 250 F
Oil: 284 F
Transmission: 226 F
Axle: 293 F

Despite these high temps I was still able to make the most of my car and got a very good handle on the track, leading to my promotion to HPDE2. I do plan to install the DH Rad and Fan combo to lower my CHTs, and I do hope that has some effect on my oil and transmission. As for my axle I might wrap a bit of exhaust wrap around the area near the axle and see what that does for my temps.

On an extra note I did end up melting my rear valance after my last session on the second day. I do have a DH valance and new rear reflectors on order (photos of the melting will be attached and some nice flybys on the main straight away). Also once my car got pretty hot I would notice if I tried flooring it on the straight away my car would kind of 2 step at 6500 RPM and stop me from further accelerating unless I let off the throttle and floored it again.If you have any recommendations for cooling or track tips please let me know, all advice is welcome!

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[nitepjony]

Just some extra videos I just found.

 

[krisk]

Hey all!
I wanted to make this post to talk about my recent track weekend at the Buttonwillow Circuit track, as well as discussing future steps for my car to make it better on track.

This was an event hosted by NASA. This was my second ever NASA event and second event track event. They are an awesome organizer and I had a lot of fun learning the track. I was in HPDE1 with an instructor for the first day and most of the second day. Luckily during the last 2 sessions we had a double and my instructor gave me the go ahead to ride solo. We ran a double session where we run a session, go back to grid while HPDE3 and 4 do their thing, and immediately after we go back. At the end I was promoted to HPDE2!

The circuit track was definitely fun to learn and there was a steep learning curve as Intook turn 8 a bit too fast and went off track my very first session. But immediately afterwards I got the hang of the track pretty well. Once again thanks a lot to NASA for hosting this event. It was very structured and fun to attend once again. I do have plans to return to Buttonwillow to take on their Classic track in October.

Next I want to talk about my cars performance. My car is a non-pp GT, meaning it had completely inadequate cooling for the track. Luckily I had some cooling mods installed before I took on the track. I had the OEM PP transmission cooler and the MMR oil cooler. I also had an aftermarket oil temp gauge installed to track my oil temps. My tuner also tuned my car to force my grille shutters open and to give me the DH oil temp algorithm to prevent limp mod. I also have the PP undertray and fender liners to give airflow for my oil cooler and my front brakes. I also swapped out to Powerstop Z26 pads on the front and rear. Car comes with the 6 piston front brembos from factory. I was really pushing my car this weekend much to the dismay of my all season 255s. Here are my temps near the end of my second day, peak temps I saw on track.

Ambient Temp: 110 F
CHT: 250 F
Oil: 284 F
Transmission: 226 F
Axle: 293 F

Despite these high temps I was still able to make the most of my car and got a very good handle on the track, leading to my promotion to HPDE2. I do plan to install the DH Rad and Fan combo to lower my CHTs, and I do hope that has some effect on my oil and transmission. As for my axle I might wrap a bit of exhaust wrap around the area near the axle and see what that does for my temps.

On an extra note I did end up melting my rear valance after my last session on the second day. I do have a DH valance and new rear reflectors on order (photos of the melting will be attached and some nice flybys on the main straight away). Also once my car got pretty hot I would notice if I tried flooring it on the straight away my car would kind of 2 step at 6500 RPM and stop me from further accelerating unless I let off the throttle and floored it again.If you have any recommendations for cooling or track tips please let me know, all advice is welcome!

Congratulations on finding a new (and expensive ) hobby. It sounds like you are picking it up quickly, and from my experience the more you do it the more fun it becomes.

As someone who just started tracking in the last couple of years, I’ll share some thoughts from my relatively brief experience.

1. Your differential will overheat and you will go into limo mode (assuming your tuner did not raise the temp limit or disable it). I ended up adding the MMR differential cooler and that solved my issues. https://www.mustang7g.com/forums/th...-install-update-9-21-24-track-testing.162367/

2. Your oil and transmission temps look in line with what I have seen on my PP car. I did find that on occasion my transmission temps would keep rising when I was first tracking with the car in auto. There was one time the transmission got over 230 and the shifting acted crazy. I have since switched to using manual mode with paddle shifters and have not had any issues. I also found auto mode shifted at less than ideal times on certain tracks. At Roebling Road, it would always downshift right as I was starting my turn in on turn 5 and it upset the car.

3. Be sure you are changing your fluids regularly. I do an oil change every other weekend. Differential fluid every 500 miles (per owner’s manual). Transmission fluid every 2-3 weekends. Bleed brakes before every track event. Also, I’m assuming you’ve already done this since you otherwise prepped the car for the track, but be sure you’re running a high temp DOT4 brake fluid.

4. Check your brakes to be sure you haven’t melted the caliper seals. My fronts were shot after a couple track days. I replaced the seals with a high temp version and have not had any trouble with them melting since the change. https://www.opmustang.com/store/p28...025_Mustang_GT_Performance_Pack_Brakes.html#/

Enjoy the new hobby! It’s addictive!

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