So I bought my 13 Boss in December and spent the summer prepping it for some track duty starting this past Sunday. I spent a lot of time reading posts here and felt I had installed the right stuff to make the car a solid runner (aluminum DS, LCA's and brackets, MGW race spec, P springs, splitter, brake ducts, race fluid, pads, stainless lines, titanium backing plates, slicks, CC plates).
I was running a new 3.5 mile layout at Pocono that used most of the front straight and much of the back straight and tunnel turn. It was a challenging course with lots of late apex turns with varied speeds, getting up to 145 mph going into turn 1.
After my first two hot laps the front brakes developed a major vibration. I was using stock rotors (8K miles) with Hawk street/race pads and I had done some attempted bedding when I installed them and then drove them on the street a few hundred miles. I thought they would be ready but I think they probably were not bedded correctly. The vibration improved with each session and by the 4th was almost resolved under hard braking but was still felt with initial light application. Bite was strong. I was thinking rotors are shot but driving home there was minimal vibration. The pedal got longer as the sessions went on and heel/toe became very difficult at the end. Maybe a bleed would help that.
The most disappointing thing was the shifter. Deep down I was hoping I would be different and I would have a slick shifting MT-82 with no lock-out. Wrong! Before the first session was out I could feel the box getting more notchy and it was very hard to get consistently clean downshifts. Then I started to get locked out of 5th which was at the worst time when I was ripping down the straights catching cars only to have to wait a second before forcefully having to jam the lever into 5th. At one point I was attempting to hit 5th right before hitting the tunnel turn....got locked out and had to coast through the turn so I didn't upset the car right at the bottom of the banking and lose it. By the time I got to the braking zone and could blip the throttle to shift I had a Vette on my ass that I had to let past. This happened every lap on both straights.
The bright spot.....the car was so fun throwing around turns! With the 21 mm rear bar and slicks I had good bite coming out of turns and it was surprisingly compliant transitioning from the infield to the oval where I could accelerate through the bumps and keep my speed onto the straight. Understeer was mild and I am sure I could fix that with better struts and some geometry changes.
Between the shitty transmission and weak brakes I am ready to sell this car and find a used GTR......those things are ungodly fast! The handling and stock power were great but........I can't see spending 8-10K on big brakes and a Tremec to get the car where I need it. It would be fine on the street but I bought this thing to flog and I can't drive it like I need to.
I was running a new 3.5 mile layout at Pocono that used most of the front straight and much of the back straight and tunnel turn. It was a challenging course with lots of late apex turns with varied speeds, getting up to 145 mph going into turn 1.
After my first two hot laps the front brakes developed a major vibration. I was using stock rotors (8K miles) with Hawk street/race pads and I had done some attempted bedding when I installed them and then drove them on the street a few hundred miles. I thought they would be ready but I think they probably were not bedded correctly. The vibration improved with each session and by the 4th was almost resolved under hard braking but was still felt with initial light application. Bite was strong. I was thinking rotors are shot but driving home there was minimal vibration. The pedal got longer as the sessions went on and heel/toe became very difficult at the end. Maybe a bleed would help that.
The most disappointing thing was the shifter. Deep down I was hoping I would be different and I would have a slick shifting MT-82 with no lock-out. Wrong! Before the first session was out I could feel the box getting more notchy and it was very hard to get consistently clean downshifts. Then I started to get locked out of 5th which was at the worst time when I was ripping down the straights catching cars only to have to wait a second before forcefully having to jam the lever into 5th. At one point I was attempting to hit 5th right before hitting the tunnel turn....got locked out and had to coast through the turn so I didn't upset the car right at the bottom of the banking and lose it. By the time I got to the braking zone and could blip the throttle to shift I had a Vette on my ass that I had to let past. This happened every lap on both straights.
The bright spot.....the car was so fun throwing around turns! With the 21 mm rear bar and slicks I had good bite coming out of turns and it was surprisingly compliant transitioning from the infield to the oval where I could accelerate through the bumps and keep my speed onto the straight. Understeer was mild and I am sure I could fix that with better struts and some geometry changes.
Between the shitty transmission and weak brakes I am ready to sell this car and find a used GTR......those things are ungodly fast! The handling and stock power were great but........I can't see spending 8-10K on big brakes and a Tremec to get the car where I need it. It would be fine on the street but I bought this thing to flog and I can't drive it like I need to.
