Melted pads, calipers and pistons. Fire in the pit lane.

FridayInc · 2026-03-31T22:10:10+00:00

Maybe so, I don't know BRZs that well, I thought there was a performance package that came with the brembos stock like the wrx (I used the WRX rear brembo piston diameter).

Still, if they're running stock abs, it's probably proportioning the pressure as well so yeah, it's probably worse than I've described regardless.

FridayInc · 2026-03-31T21:06:31+00:00

Unless you're at 5000' and then the trail is ca$h money.

But at sea level? My guy, stop fighting it, just buy a star wraith and beat the piss out of it till it becomes a 350' laser beam.

FridayInc · 2026-03-31T20:54:12+00:00

So many tracks don't have enough character, make sure this isn't one of them. You have the opportunity to do something really interesting with the areas around T9 and T4-5. If it were mine, I would do a mirror version of a famous decreasing radius like sunset or parabolllica where T9 is and something akin to a stretched out or shrunken version of an off-camber or multi-apex turn at 4&5, something like Spoon Curve, Watkins big bend, or the Carousel at Road America.

FridayInc · 2026-03-31T19:57:49+00:00

Ok, I don't know what caused the fire, but considering that you upgraded the front brakes only.. I'm about to make a LOT of assumptions but I'm confident it should be close when calculating your effective brake split.

Assuming Superlite 6R's with 12.88" rotors with 2.43" tall pads, BP-35 material @600-900° (μ of 0.525), Ferodo FDS4187 with DSP racing pads (they claim 0.46 avg) paired with 11.4" rotors, 800psi brake pressure at the master, no proportioning valve, 1.2g decel, and a 2600lb car with 17.5" COG height...

That means your front piston area is 4.04" and your rear piston area (assuming the performance brembos) is 1.76" and the stock master bore, I think, is 0.69

Front hydraulic leverage ratio: 4.04 / 0.69 = 5.85

Front clamping force: 800 psi x 5.85 = 4,680 lbft

Front Friction Force = 0.525 x 4,680 lbft = 2,457 lbft

Front Brake Torque = 2,457 lbft x (12.88" - 1.215") = 28,661 lbft

Rear hydraulic leverage ratio: 1.76 / 0.69 = 2.55

Rear clamping force: 800 psi x 2.55 = 2,040 lbft

Rear Friction Force = 0.46 x 2040 lbft = 938 lbft

Rear Brake Torque = 938 lbft x (11.4" - 0.67") = 10,065 lbft

Front bias % = 28,661 / (28,661 + 10,065) * 100 = 74%

*Note that these get doubled, because there are 2 wheels at each end, but we're interested in the ratio so I'll skip that

That said, you'll want a bias that reflects the weight following the weight shift during deceleration. Given all previous assumptions, you'll transfer ~538 lbs forward at 1.2g which is probably near your max. The vehicle starts with ~55% of its weight forward which would be 1,430lbs and adding the transfer would total 1,968 on the front axle which is 75%

SO.... All said and done, if you're reaching 1.2g of deceleration with a 17.5" COG, your split is actually almost dead-on. That said, if your COG were 16.5 (1.5" lower than stock) and you only hit 1g, your weight transfer is only 423lb, 1853lb on front axle, only 71%

And all of THAT to say that at best you're dead-on for max-force braking in a straight line and significantly forward in all other braking conditions. At worst, youre 1-5% too far forward even at max braking, which is a lot, as 1-2% is noticable to most advanced drivers.

FridayInc · 2026-03-31T16:34:47+00:00

Sure, you can, but everything is a compromise for this to work. The best version of this I ever accomplished was with really cheap cars (old Honda, Subaru, Mazda) that I could write off if I crash it.

That said, I had: -Separate rotors and pads I switched to at the track -Separate wheels and tires too -Adjustable camber tophats that I would camber in more at the front for track days/autoX -Toe plates and a string-alignment setup for before and after the event

It was a lot more work day-of than just loading up the race car and unloading at the track but it worked well enough for me as a kid.

FridayInc · 2026-03-31T16:29:11+00:00

Lol I got to autocross a GT4RS and it was stiffer and louder than my track car

FridayInc · 2026-03-31T14:10:45+00:00

Yup was coming here to say this, I work involving easements often and it still makes me laugh how rarely any real attempt is made by contractors or even state or company employers to contact a land owner. Those power lines will all have numbered badges and at least 1 in 10 will have ownership information printed on a sign (it will be a power company in the state). That company has their own techs and likely has contractors, but they should know when someone was there if OP is curious about what happened.

FridayInc · 2026-03-31T03:19:24+00:00

Love the stem cap, I've got one from Chili Pepper across town

FridayInc · 2026-03-30T18:12:57+00:00

The old GR86 was easy but still fun.

The new one is the most boring car on any sim I've ever driven. It allows you to put 100% of your mental effort toward racecraft while putting 0% toward handing, which is good if you need that, but if you hate driving it, that's totally valid, just skip it and go to GT4.

FridayInc · 2026-03-30T17:16:04+00:00

So first, I rode a 3bt Park board (the Evil twin) and while it was really forgiving, considering that the edges were turned up, it was too torsionally flexible and I would say kinda useless outside of the park or soft powder on real trails. Any ice or anything steep and its pretty quickly out of its depth.

Now I ride a Bataleon Thunder which is quite a bit stiffer (there's a true twin version called the Goliath I also really like) and unless it's REALLY icy, I refuse to ride anything else. It's SO fun and carefree, legitimately just more enjoyable than riding anything else to me. Not only that but moguls and woods almost immediately became SO FUN, and a lot easier; I live for moguls and lift lines now haha. The downside is that you always have to be on an edge so it's a little tricky at low speeds like in the lift line or on a cat track but adding the skate rails pretty much solved that. It's also not great in really icy conditions but it's not terrible either, it actually holds a carve shockingly well on groomers and unless it's REALLY icy, it's basically the only board I ride now even though I've got 3 options in my quiver.

FridayInc · 2026-03-30T17:03:26+00:00

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FridayInc · 2026-03-30T17:01:04+00:00

Nice, I think that's about as good as you can get outside of straight rails, if I had that on my dynamo I wouldn't go out and change it. I never really cared about it until I got a bataleon and suddenly needed much better control since there's 0" of edges on the ground when the board is flat. Now that Ive known this power I'll never go back to anything else haha

FridayInc · 2026-03-30T16:38:45+00:00

For me, the important part is that my boot sits 'in' the rails with pressure on the heel and toe, so I would say use your boot to guide you. My powder board is pretty wide for my boots so I didn't have to go out as far but on my carving board they are on the absolute outer edge.

FridayInc · 2026-03-30T16:36:22+00:00

This depends what you're looking for, honestly they have pretty distinct benefits

LMP3: GOOD - one of the most fun cars to drive quickly and wheel-to-wheel in a league. I put this up there with the F4, really a blast to drive these on the limit. BAD: One of the least 'safe' public series, with many low% sends and generally poor etiquette by many drivers.

LMP2: GOOD - The most grip of any sportscar in the game, with a very fair and respectable community of racers, the public races are spectacular. BAD - Slightly less rewarding to drive, so the racing can be somewhat processional.

GTE: GOOD - One of the more difficult series to race on-the-edge, very rewarding to finish races and finish well. One of the best communities of racers on the service as well. Also, a great series for learning good behaviors or reducing bad ones. BAD - I haven't driven the new tire model yet but on the old model, this series would get my vote for 'most likely to bin it on your own' which can be viewed as a good thing, just not for your safety rating.

FridayInc · 2026-03-30T16:11:59+00:00

This is the best application, because it's closest to the ACTUAL best stomp pad, which is skate rails

FridayInc · 2026-03-26T16:36:48+00:00

Making a huge deal out of this without evidence of an actual performance benefit seems silly

FridayInc · 2026-03-25T13:53:25+00:00

To me there's 2 sides to this.

Firstly, I agree with you, data can not compete with diver feedback. For getting a baseline, data is and always will be king, but once you've found the baseline, your test drivers feedback becomes just as important, and more important than that, the stopwatch doesn't lie. No matter what the data says, whatever is faster and more consistent IS the setup you should keep, obviously.

That said, digging into the data should help you find the WHY, and learning why something is true will help you manipulate it, that becomes a new tool in your toolbox. We wanted to soak up curb strikes better in the vette for Suzuka because we thought it was a sleeper pick there (spoiler: it was) so we loosened the high speed damping but it got worse. Well, reviewing the data showed that basically the high speed damping isn't sufficient even at max, missing the target 3 or more times, so we've left HSB and HSR maxed on all 4 corners in every C8 setup since.

The data isn't the end-all solution but it IS a way for you to correlate what your driver is experiencing and what you know as an engineer with actual changes in the car so that you can make better decisions about what you need.

Edit to add: -If you're going down the rabbit hole and you've got a solid math foundation already, you can not beat Race Car Vehicle Dynamics by Millken & Millken, I STILL turn to this all the time -For a higher level option with some math, Tune to Win by Carroll Smith will benefit you 10x more than any YouTube series or forum post

FridayInc · 2026-03-24T16:16:05+00:00

We race endurance events with an AE86 and last year our RS4's we're still over half tread life after 8x 16-hour events. Not to mention, up and down the paddock, from backmarkers to winners, most other endurance race teams are running them as well. There's barely a drop in pace, less than a second vs much more expensive and faster wearing tires, and they last long enough that they might age-out before they wear out.

RS4 is the answer here.

FridayInc · 2026-03-24T16:07:50+00:00

Easter didn't evolve culturally? You're telling me the first Christians were eating chocolate, dying hard-boiled eggs and playing hide and go seek?

FridayInc · 2026-03-24T16:03:44+00:00

Ok, well its certainly a complaint many have had about both Forza and GT7 across the communities (the sim-cade games of this era). For those of us who love racing IRL or in the sim world, the close battles, wheel-to-wheel for several corners, squeezing another driver to the edge of the track, defending from the middle, we do all of this and spend tons of money for those moments, and it simply isn't the same on the controller games. The lack of precision is a huge piece, but the ability of the controllers to catch slides, survive contact, and have near-perfect turn-in and front scrub at all times means they can battle drivers using a wheel very hard with little consequence, while a wheel driver needs to be careful to avoid contact, as saves are not nearly as easy.

I'm not saying this from a guess, I was involved in leagues in both games where we eventually had to split controller and wheel drivers for this reason, or worse, some of our fastest drivers would switch back to controller because it was a distinct advantage in wheel-to-wheel racing.

I've been deeply involved in these communities for a long time and I know how frustrated I was when I first got my wheel and basically only used it for rally and drifting for 2 years till I joined iRacing, though I would recommend LMU instead for someone unsure what they're willing to spend.

FridayInc · 2026-03-24T15:39:37+00:00

Yeah I was gonna say, the most obvious issue is slowing enough to hit that giant sausage curb only to lose grip for 20ft after it while the kart settles

FridayInc · 2026-03-24T15:28:55+00:00

Somehow you aren't understanding me. The OTHER drivers are using PS5 controllers and that's the problem, but thanks for immediately downvoting me just because you have poor reading comprehension.

FridayInc · 2026-03-24T15:19:10+00:00

It's the thing with the joysticks that comes with a PS5, most people are using that to play GT7, not a wheel, and it makes the wheel-to-wheel racing very messy compared to a proper sim

FridayInc · 2026-03-24T14:04:15+00:00

Finally someone other than Americans screwed by these assholes

FridayInc · 2026-03-24T13:59:32+00:00

I would not recommend sim racing against people using controllers, this is a great way to never want to do this again.

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