ShaneM

I went to eagle canyon raceway in denton tx back over the weekend in my boss 302 and found that while the recaro seats in it are supportive down low, they offer little in the way of support in the upper body. My **** and low back stayed planted, but I had to support my shoulders with my arms and steering wheel. Is there something you guys with street driven cars that see autox and track time do to keep your upper body in check during high speed turns? It seems the cg lock is for lower body control, but i have never seen one in use or used one to know if that is accurate or not. suggestions?


also any of you guys with manual 11-12 cars have issues with clutch at the track? i had slight brake fade later in the day as the temps were in the 100 range ambient, but nothing like pedal to the floor fade i sued to get with my 87 fox at the autox. What bothered me more was coming off one of the more technical sections of the course with lower speeds you come through a long sweeping corner at relatively high speed and then hit the front straight in 3rd. when i would try to hit 4th the clutch pedal wasn't coming all the way back up from the floor and felt very mushy.

I did run the car totally stock with the factory fluid in it. i have since changed to dot 4 so no lectures on that what i am wondering is if possibly the fluid overheating in a section where there wasn't as much time or airflow to cool the brakes could have had an effect on the clutch performance. the shifting issue was only on that section of the track, in two other 3-4 shift straights it was fine. the car shifts fine on the street, though seems to feel better with the dot4 in the car and the slight crunch on 2-3 isn't as noticeable. im sort of wondering if perhaps it had a bit of air in the lines from the factory.

parchisi

I usually move my seat back, lock the belt by giving it a quick yank so that I can barely get it buckled, then I move the seat forward so that its so tight I can't move my upper body at all. Helps keep my torso pressed into the back of the seat so that the minimal bolster that is there can work better.

Norm Peterson

For auto-X, I usually use a chest strap that I assembled from the two pieces of some old OE lap belt.

I won't wear it on the street (no matter how hard I think I might be driving), and I don't think I'd wear it out on a big track unless/until there was some sort of additional rollover protection installed.


Norm

parchisi

Oh, and yeah, after one particularly intense session on the track while driving to the cold pit area I noticed the clutch felt a little different, seemed to come back out a little slower than usual, nothing too bothersome though. I did have dot 4 fluid in there, but I don't know if any of it was actually in the clutch components or not.

Argonaut

You are correct, the CGLock only affects the lap belt and doesn't help your shoulders. If you have enough leg room you could try moving the seat a little closer to the wheel, that might help a little. More upright position may help. Do your seats allow a harness (not familiar with the seats in your super car), if so get a harness bar.

I doubt there is any correlation between the brake temps and the clutch issues (i.e. I don't think brake cooling will help the clutch issue), the hot end of the brake fluid is to far away from the clutch. Hopefully the switch to dot 4 will help. My car gets hard to shift when the clutch is hot, especially if I try to shift into reverse right after coming in from a track session. I bleed the clutch frequently (every other event or so) in an attempt to minimize the problem (thats on a C5 though, separate brake and clutch master cylinders).

ShaneM

thanks for the insight. i was as close as i could get and still drive comfortably. it might be that i was just too intense, ended up with a couple blisters on the palms from gripping the wheel lol

i did drive the car a lot yesterday and the shifting is smoother with the new fluid in it. interestingly i noticed when the tranny is cold i still have a slight crunch on 2-3 i can feel but the slighter crunch on 3-4 is gone. the clutch action also feels smoother as in it doesn't feel like nothing for most of the pedal travel and then full release all the sudden like it did before. it feels like a smooth release from half the clutch pedal travel to full release whereas before it felt like all the clutch release was in the last quarter of pedal travel. that made for some occasional jerky launches from red lights at low speed.

stepqhen

I personally wouldn't use a harness on a road course without rollover protection, since if you do go upside down and crush the roof while wearing a harness then you can't be pushed to the side and you will instead crush your spine. Locking the belt and either pushing the seat forward against, or they will lock the belt, pull it tight, unbuckle it and put a twist in it does help some, and I even knew one guy who used rubberized shelf liners behind his back to help him stick to the seat.

Argonaut

Yea - I've heard this argument many times. But the fact is, the upside down, crushed roof event is very rare. You have a far greater chance of being involved in other types of collisions where a harness is going to do a lot more for you than a 3 point. There are a heck of a lot of cars on track using harness bars. A tiny percentage of them are ever involved in incidents where it would have been better to have used a 3 point rather than a 5/6 point. Personally I'm not going to give up the advantages of a 6 point harness and the increased safety it provides in the most common colisions because of the very small chance of a pancaked roof. And even in that scenario, there are no guarantees you will survive any better in a 3 point.

In the end, driving a car is risky. Driving at high speeds is even riskier. Everyone has to decide on their own how much risk they are willing to take.

908ssp

I've done loads of track days since 1972 and unless the car was a race car or convertable nobody had roll bars and at least 50% had 5 point harness. In all the events track days and race events I can't remember anybody ever landing on the roof. And today's cars are built with far better rollover protection than cars years ago. I use Recaros.

Swoope

link to this issue is at the other place! also reading this might have the pressue plate bolts checked.. this is not normal on any car..

beers