First track day with the Frankenfiesta Saturday in Portland with Alfa Club

[meFiSTo]

Car is finally coming together. I'll be doing a shakedown run with the Alfa kids Saturday at Portland International. If you are around, drop by the paddock. Frankenfiesta will be somewhere in the south paddock. Look for the old asian dude.

 

[meFiSTo]

Great day. Perfect cool, dry, partial cloudy/sunny conditions. Home safe, no CELs, no offs, LSD works like a charm, suspension just about perfect for my purposes. Coolant temp topped out at about 210 (yay water wetter, cool day helped).

Just about done for the day:

I think there was actually one more session left.

I took a few smartphone paddock pics. Some nice visiting hardware, vintage Alfas, and a couple VERY fast cars.

A couple pics taken by Charles White Photography:

 

[MKVIIST]

Great photos, how did the stock brakes handle overall?

 

[rexdriver85]

Awesome pictures! [emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]

 

[RAAMaudio]

Good to know I am not the only one with a silver st with a sunroof that will see some great track time.

Great pics, great track, glad you had some fun

 

[meFiSTo]

Great photos, how did the stock brakes handle overall?

They did very well (IMHO), but I was not hard on them. For this first event in the car, I was (mostly) early to brakes and progressive with my application. but really, it was only a potential issue in the two ABS braking zones (end of the main and back straights). If you wait long enough, you can really ask for a lot from the brakes at PIR in those two spots, but I did not. Otherwise, the track is mostly just even application to control speed, maybe a little trail braking.

I posted this picture in my build thread:

That's the passenger side front pad at the end of the day, getting set to swap on the street wheels. I inadvertently left all the nannies on during the first session and during a red flag stop, smoke billowed up from that brake. Once we got going again and did a cool down lap, all was well. Once I turned everything off that I could turn off by the button in the cabin, I didn't seem to have any issues like that.

Here's the driver's side front pad:

Portland is a counter clockwise track. I guess I'd expect a little more heat happening this side of the car, trail braking and what have you. Certainly, the tires warmed up faster on this side of the car. That pad seems a little more chalky on the top edge. Not sure if that is significant. We'll take a closer look when the car goes in for some installs this month.

Nonetheless, there was amazingly little wear on these pads for pretty much a full day of lapping (Alfa of Oregon runs 3 15-minute sessions in the a.m. and 3 20-minute sessiona after lunch for each run group).

These are Carbotech XP8 pads. I'm running Torque RT700 fluids and have StopTech braided stainless-steel sheathed teflon brake lines. I got no fade as far as I could tell. When I asked for a little later brake performance (usually chasing down someone), I did get into ABS and the car slowed nicely without any hesitation. Carbotech pads have a more progressive feel than some other race pads. I'm used to that, but their ultimate grip is very good.

For my purposes, the stock calipers provided plenty of stopping power and seemed to hold up well, if that's what you are asking. I will make sure that the shop that does all the work on this car inspects the brake calipers etc. carefully before every event (or after every event depending, I guess).

Good to know I am not the only one with a silver st with a sunroof that will see some great track time.

Great pics, great track, glad you had some fun

I kind of regretted the moonroof as soon as I ordered it, but I really like having it for every day purposes. Heh. I did post a question in one of the Seibon CF threads about a possible CF plug replacement for the moonroof glass, but didn't get a response. I guess I should ask Seibon directly. That would allow the functionality of the thing, but take out most of the weight.