Suspension tuning day

Here are some photos from my "private" tuning day at Fuji Speedway last friday. I made a last minute decision to drive out there to play with the new suspension.

The weather was warm (low 20s), clear skies (check out Mt Fuji in the background!) and a light breeze was prevailing. There were 3 afternoon sessions all of which I participated in.











Now, a few words about how it all went.

I found the car to be very well balanced with a slight tendency to oversteer, handling was very good, corner speed and grip significantly improved all thanks to the negative camber and lowered center of gravity. A world of difference in corner speed !! For the first time it actually felt like the whole tyre patch was in contact with the track!

There was some "bunny hopping" but only when braking into the Dunlop corner and the last corner. In the last of 3 sessions I actually increased the setting to the hardest on the front (started off with 2nd hardest) and this "hopping" went away a little but didn't completely disappear. I think this is probably expected but I'm no suspension expert so can't explain it.

One more difference worth mentioning was braking at the end of the main straight. I was struggling there a lot, the car was a little wobbly in the rear on the first application of brakes but later recovered. The problem was this wobbliness was forcing me to brake lighter and earlier which is where most of the time was lost.

Anyway, after all that learning practice I attacked the circuit in the end and slashed my best time down to 2'11''33. Not a huge difference but I am pretty sure next time I can drop down to below 2'10''.



On saturday I finally got around to fitting in those tow hooks. Found a nice spot near Harumi where I knew cops wouldn't bother me much :)

Here is a photo showing all the hard work needed to remove the front bumper.



And here it is installed and the whole car washed and detailed.



Thanks to Russ for taking the time to make that new sticker for me !
Check out his blog here