TTUNED visits the track (and lives!)
January 21st was a mild milestone of sorts. Almost two years after starting my Stage III project, TTUNED went to a track event and drove home in (relatively) one piece. Open Track Racing’s day at Willow Springs was an absolute blast. While no track records were broken, I did manage to top my previous personal best lap time of 1:43.74 with a 1:40.20.
This was the first even where I really got to put the Garrett turbo to work. The only previous track event with the APR Stage III kit was the November 2002 TracQuest event at Laguna Seca, but they were out of 100 octane so I was only running the 91 program (282 hp) and even though I was only able to run two sessions before the turbo-to-exhaust manifold studs backed out (two even snapped) I was encouraged by the results, pulling off a 1:58.18 lap time on S03 street tires, almost two seconds better than my best lap during my previous visit when I was running just the APR 1 bar chip with the 100 octane program.
Most of 2003 was spent shaking out issues with the turbo and the Sachs clutch, but I also used the time to work on dialing out the car’s understeer by installing front and rear Neuspeed sway bars. A Neuspeed short-shifter was also installed, and in November 2003 I finally got around to having Stillen/BrakePros install the AP Racing brakes that I knew I needed after experiencing serious brake fade at Laguna Seca.
In December I finally gave up on trying to figure out what was wrong with the Sachs Sport clutch – Sachs had pressure checked it and said there was nothing wrong with it, but after re-installing it in the car it was still engaging at the floor and nearly impossible to use. I pulled both the clutch and the Autotech flywheel and replaced them with a 228mm clutch/flywheel package from SPEC.
While the car was apart I decided to splurge and get the Forge FMIC. I had wanted the APR intercooler as I liked the design and wasn’t keen on having to replace the 180hp manifold with the opposite facing 225hp manifold, but after being on backorder from APR for 5 months (supposedly waiting on some mythical bracket) I got tired of waiting and decided to go with something tried and true. Forge has had plenty of time to get this kit right, including Sampco hoses that dimple in just the right place so you don’t lose your headlight washers. Yeah, it was a lot more work than a top-bottom core like the APR would have been, but Ken (my mechanic at Newport Auto Center) was up to the challenge and I like to keep him busy. Ken did a fabulous job installing the intercooler, clutch and flywheel, and while he was at it I picked up a VF-Engineering billet aluminum motor mount from Evolution Motorsports in Tempe, AZ.
I had my fingers crossed on the SPEC clutch, since we really weren't sure what the problem was with the Sachs kit, but it performed beautifully from the moment it was installed. The SPEC clutch pedal feel is incredibly light compared to the Sachs - it almost feels stock, you'd never guess it was a Stage III clutch. SPEC is pretty serious in their documentation about the 450 mile “city driving” break-in period, which also served as a nice shake out period for all the other new parts. With everything seeming to be working as planned (for once!), it was time to get to the track!
The Willow Springs event was my first with Open Track Racing. My buddy Eric had heard of them through some friends he tracks his modified Z06 with, so we signed up and coerced Jae to show up with his Boxster S as well. This was my fourth visit to the Big Track, which I hadn’t driven since September of 2001, so my goals were pretty modest – get my feet wet again on the track, see how well all the new mods play together at speed, and see if everything would stay together in one piece.
The only other track group I’ve run with is TracQuest, which provides a host of instructors that you can have hop in your car all day long as well as ride in their cars (always an eye-opening experience). I was used to always going out with an instructor for at least my first session of the day; it’s a confidence builder, when you only go to the track a few times a year, to have the basics pointed out again, build up speed with someone knowledgeable in the car, and there’s always something new to learn as well.
OTR is run a little differently, without any real “formal” in-car instructors other than the guys running the event (the novice yellow group does get a formal chalk talk prior to their first outing, and attending an OTR event is significantly less expensive than a TracQuest event). Without anyone in the passenger’s seat to tell me “yeah, you can definitely carry more speed in that corner” and the like, I didn’t really push it in a few places I think I could have gained some more time in (mainly entering turn 2 and staying on the throttle entering turn 8). I decided that today wasn’t the day to go after my target of cracking 1:40, that I was more interested in learning how the AP brakes worked and what the new horsepower could do on the front and back straights. Considering that, I’m pretty happy with the 1:40.20 lap time – I’m sure with some instruction (or more seat time to build up the confidence) on turns 2 and 8 there’s easily a 1:39 the next time out. A more experienced (talented) pilot would no doubt wring out something much lower.
The car was an absolute blast to drive, pulling so strong that I caught air a couple of times going through 6 (a right-hand kink with a hump in the middle). Prior to the Stage III upgrade, I wouldn’t get out of 4th gear on the back straight before entering 8, but now I was over 6000 rpm well before 7 and entering 8 close to 120 mph. The days of driving TTUNED with the throttle either “on” or “off” are over – the 100+ extra horsepower requires actual modulation, and that meant I had to learn how to drive the track all over again. The extra power and taller 5th gear had me hitting over 130 mph on the front straight without breaking a sweat, where before the car was straining to get over 110 mph before braking for turn 1.
The Quaife was fantastic – I never felt the car hunt for traction. Steering was razor sharp; I’m not sure how much of the understeer has been corrected (I never noticed it much at Willow, the real test for that will come at Thunder Hill) but it certainly didn’t cause any adverse affects.
The extra speed seems to have made the lack of rear downforce fairly noticeable in spots like braking at the end of 8; the rear end seem very twitchy at times. I’ve resisted adding a spoiler to my car purely for cosmetic reasons – I’ve always preferred the look of an “unspoiled” TT and read several articles about the car’s aerodynamic ground effects when I was first considering buying it. There were a couple of moments, however, where I found myself wondering if an extra 90+ lbs of downforce wouldn’t be useful. Still leaning towards the Sportec, but maybe the factory 3.2 spoiler is the ticket.
There was a minor casualty right off the bat – while walking around the car after the first session I noticed what I thought was tire rubber stuck around the hole in the rear valance for the exhaust, but closer inspection revealed the valance itself had been melted. The metal where the rear exhaust hanger attached to the Neuspeed/Borla exhaust had fatigued to the point where it just gave way – the hanger weld was perfectly intact, it just ripped the stainless steel right out of the pipe leaving a hole where the hanger should connect. I tried to support it using some bailing wire but at the end of the second session I was dragging the hanger into the pits and the exhaust had melted the opening even further – mostly on the left (driver's) side, due to the g’s pulled in turn 2.
I tried the bailing wire again, this time wrapping it around the exhaust tip and part of the bumper to restrict its lateral movement and that worked well enough for the rest of the day and the drive home. I’d been toying with the idea of getting the 2.5” Milltek cat-back anyway, since the Neuspeed/Borla was a 2.25” and the APR cat is a 2.5”. I also thought about having a custom 3” exhaust made, as the APR cat starts as a 3”, but in the end decided to order the Milltek from Stratmosphere as some of the twists for the 180 Front-Track exhaust just look really tight for a 3” exhaust, and I’m happy with the dyno numbers already using the 2.25”. It should be here the end of the week, so we’ll see how that goes. I already have my black 3.2 TT rear valance from TT Stuff which will replace the melted stock piece.
My big worry had been the turbo studs – they had failed in both of the previous events I’d used the car in after the Stage III upgrade (first at the Silver State road rally in September 2002 and then again at the aforementioned Laguna Seca event in November). I already have a set of the second-generation inconel studs from APR (the originals were stainless steel with tungsten inserts) and recently received a special bracket that provides support for the turbo to the exhaust manifold, but neither have been installed since the current setup is firmly attached. Ken’s theory was take it to the track, and if they loosen up then we’ll do the replacement and add the bracket, otherwise see if it will hold together. So far, so good – after over two hours of track time everything’s still in one piece (knock on wood!!).
So all in all a very fun and relatively uneventful day. The OTR folks were a fun group to run with (despite a serious lack of Audis - I think it was just me and a lone A4) and I'm looking forward to attending another OTR event. There are a couple of new in-car videos from the event on my race movies page, one of Jae and Eric’s cars, and a more general highlight reel (that one is “sped up” 25% to compress the time, fit more cars in, and just make it a bit more fun – the videos just don’t convey the real speed). I didn’t take many pictures, just a couple of TTUNED to get shots of the new intercooler and brakes, so I’ll throw those in a “general” album later on Webshots. Once the exhaust is squared away the next event I’m planning to attend is TracQuest at Buttonwillow, a track I still haven’t driven even though I’ve signed up for events there a couple of times (but something always broke just before). Hopefully the third time will be the charm!
back to Jeff's Stage III Audi TT page
This was the first even where I really got to put the Garrett turbo to work. The only previous track event with the APR Stage III kit was the November 2002 TracQuest event at Laguna Seca, but they were out of 100 octane so I was only running the 91 program (282 hp) and even though I was only able to run two sessions before the turbo-to-exhaust manifold studs backed out (two even snapped) I was encouraged by the results, pulling off a 1:58.18 lap time on S03 street tires, almost two seconds better than my best lap during my previous visit when I was running just the APR 1 bar chip with the 100 octane program.
Most of 2003 was spent shaking out issues with the turbo and the Sachs clutch, but I also used the time to work on dialing out the car’s understeer by installing front and rear Neuspeed sway bars. A Neuspeed short-shifter was also installed, and in November 2003 I finally got around to having Stillen/BrakePros install the AP Racing brakes that I knew I needed after experiencing serious brake fade at Laguna Seca.
In December I finally gave up on trying to figure out what was wrong with the Sachs Sport clutch – Sachs had pressure checked it and said there was nothing wrong with it, but after re-installing it in the car it was still engaging at the floor and nearly impossible to use. I pulled both the clutch and the Autotech flywheel and replaced them with a 228mm clutch/flywheel package from SPEC.
While the car was apart I decided to splurge and get the Forge FMIC. I had wanted the APR intercooler as I liked the design and wasn’t keen on having to replace the 180hp manifold with the opposite facing 225hp manifold, but after being on backorder from APR for 5 months (supposedly waiting on some mythical bracket) I got tired of waiting and decided to go with something tried and true. Forge has had plenty of time to get this kit right, including Sampco hoses that dimple in just the right place so you don’t lose your headlight washers. Yeah, it was a lot more work than a top-bottom core like the APR would have been, but Ken (my mechanic at Newport Auto Center) was up to the challenge and I like to keep him busy. Ken did a fabulous job installing the intercooler, clutch and flywheel, and while he was at it I picked up a VF-Engineering billet aluminum motor mount from Evolution Motorsports in Tempe, AZ.
I had my fingers crossed on the SPEC clutch, since we really weren't sure what the problem was with the Sachs kit, but it performed beautifully from the moment it was installed. The SPEC clutch pedal feel is incredibly light compared to the Sachs - it almost feels stock, you'd never guess it was a Stage III clutch. SPEC is pretty serious in their documentation about the 450 mile “city driving” break-in period, which also served as a nice shake out period for all the other new parts. With everything seeming to be working as planned (for once!), it was time to get to the track!
The Willow Springs event was my first with Open Track Racing. My buddy Eric had heard of them through some friends he tracks his modified Z06 with, so we signed up and coerced Jae to show up with his Boxster S as well. This was my fourth visit to the Big Track, which I hadn’t driven since September of 2001, so my goals were pretty modest – get my feet wet again on the track, see how well all the new mods play together at speed, and see if everything would stay together in one piece.
The only other track group I’ve run with is TracQuest, which provides a host of instructors that you can have hop in your car all day long as well as ride in their cars (always an eye-opening experience). I was used to always going out with an instructor for at least my first session of the day; it’s a confidence builder, when you only go to the track a few times a year, to have the basics pointed out again, build up speed with someone knowledgeable in the car, and there’s always something new to learn as well.
OTR is run a little differently, without any real “formal” in-car instructors other than the guys running the event (the novice yellow group does get a formal chalk talk prior to their first outing, and attending an OTR event is significantly less expensive than a TracQuest event). Without anyone in the passenger’s seat to tell me “yeah, you can definitely carry more speed in that corner” and the like, I didn’t really push it in a few places I think I could have gained some more time in (mainly entering turn 2 and staying on the throttle entering turn 8). I decided that today wasn’t the day to go after my target of cracking 1:40, that I was more interested in learning how the AP brakes worked and what the new horsepower could do on the front and back straights. Considering that, I’m pretty happy with the 1:40.20 lap time – I’m sure with some instruction (or more seat time to build up the confidence) on turns 2 and 8 there’s easily a 1:39 the next time out. A more experienced (talented) pilot would no doubt wring out something much lower.
The car was an absolute blast to drive, pulling so strong that I caught air a couple of times going through 6 (a right-hand kink with a hump in the middle). Prior to the Stage III upgrade, I wouldn’t get out of 4th gear on the back straight before entering 8, but now I was over 6000 rpm well before 7 and entering 8 close to 120 mph. The days of driving TTUNED with the throttle either “on” or “off” are over – the 100+ extra horsepower requires actual modulation, and that meant I had to learn how to drive the track all over again. The extra power and taller 5th gear had me hitting over 130 mph on the front straight without breaking a sweat, where before the car was straining to get over 110 mph before braking for turn 1.
The Quaife was fantastic – I never felt the car hunt for traction. Steering was razor sharp; I’m not sure how much of the understeer has been corrected (I never noticed it much at Willow, the real test for that will come at Thunder Hill) but it certainly didn’t cause any adverse affects.
The extra speed seems to have made the lack of rear downforce fairly noticeable in spots like braking at the end of 8; the rear end seem very twitchy at times. I’ve resisted adding a spoiler to my car purely for cosmetic reasons – I’ve always preferred the look of an “unspoiled” TT and read several articles about the car’s aerodynamic ground effects when I was first considering buying it. There were a couple of moments, however, where I found myself wondering if an extra 90+ lbs of downforce wouldn’t be useful. Still leaning towards the Sportec, but maybe the factory 3.2 spoiler is the ticket.
There was a minor casualty right off the bat – while walking around the car after the first session I noticed what I thought was tire rubber stuck around the hole in the rear valance for the exhaust, but closer inspection revealed the valance itself had been melted. The metal where the rear exhaust hanger attached to the Neuspeed/Borla exhaust had fatigued to the point where it just gave way – the hanger weld was perfectly intact, it just ripped the stainless steel right out of the pipe leaving a hole where the hanger should connect. I tried to support it using some bailing wire but at the end of the second session I was dragging the hanger into the pits and the exhaust had melted the opening even further – mostly on the left (driver's) side, due to the g’s pulled in turn 2.
I tried the bailing wire again, this time wrapping it around the exhaust tip and part of the bumper to restrict its lateral movement and that worked well enough for the rest of the day and the drive home. I’d been toying with the idea of getting the 2.5” Milltek cat-back anyway, since the Neuspeed/Borla was a 2.25” and the APR cat is a 2.5”. I also thought about having a custom 3” exhaust made, as the APR cat starts as a 3”, but in the end decided to order the Milltek from Stratmosphere as some of the twists for the 180 Front-Track exhaust just look really tight for a 3” exhaust, and I’m happy with the dyno numbers already using the 2.25”. It should be here the end of the week, so we’ll see how that goes. I already have my black 3.2 TT rear valance from TT Stuff which will replace the melted stock piece.
My big worry had been the turbo studs – they had failed in both of the previous events I’d used the car in after the Stage III upgrade (first at the Silver State road rally in September 2002 and then again at the aforementioned Laguna Seca event in November). I already have a set of the second-generation inconel studs from APR (the originals were stainless steel with tungsten inserts) and recently received a special bracket that provides support for the turbo to the exhaust manifold, but neither have been installed since the current setup is firmly attached. Ken’s theory was take it to the track, and if they loosen up then we’ll do the replacement and add the bracket, otherwise see if it will hold together. So far, so good – after over two hours of track time everything’s still in one piece (knock on wood!!).
So all in all a very fun and relatively uneventful day. The OTR folks were a fun group to run with (despite a serious lack of Audis - I think it was just me and a lone A4) and I'm looking forward to attending another OTR event. There are a couple of new in-car videos from the event on my race movies page, one of Jae and Eric’s cars, and a more general highlight reel (that one is “sped up” 25% to compress the time, fit more cars in, and just make it a bit more fun – the videos just don’t convey the real speed). I didn’t take many pictures, just a couple of TTUNED to get shots of the new intercooler and brakes, so I’ll throw those in a “general” album later on Webshots. Once the exhaust is squared away the next event I’m planning to attend is TracQuest at Buttonwillow, a track I still haven’t driven even though I’ve signed up for events there a couple of times (but something always broke just before). Hopefully the third time will be the charm!
back to Jeff's Stage III Audi TT page
posted by jeffreytz @ 12:41 AM
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