T Montague's 2zr swap - '08 m/t sedan some extra info

[tmontague]

Headed out to TMP last night and unfortunately my seat bracket had not come in yet (should be here Monday) so I was stuck using oem seats and flying around the cabin. I was able to get used to my track pads (Carbotech xp10's) for the first time and all I can say is wow. I swapped out rotors and pads the morning of and bedded them in before I left for the track - I have a dedicated set of rotors for these pads.

It's a different animal when you have track pads than street pads and it is much safer. I likely still have a second to shave off each lap just in braking but I need to build up the balls to get to that point. It's amazing how late I can brake now and how much speed scrubs off in such a short amount of time. It would fully kick in the abs after the straightaways and I'd have to manage the car from wiggling when the tires locked up.

I did about 140km's yesterday with 4 session of about 40 minutes and I never once experienced brake fade. They were always consistent and the pads didn't wear down much at all. I ended up going through 3/4 of a tank of gas which was more than usual so that says a lot for how much driving I did. I also broke the weld on my muffler and it ended up melting my rear bumper. I removed the muffler for now and the sound is awesome but much too loud to daily in.

My fastest lap was a 1:30:22 and the lap after that I was on par for 30secs faster with 1 corner to go but I caught traffic and had to slow down. I realistically would have cracked the 1:30's by a bit but after the 4th session I packed it in as I was starting to feel tired. Oddly enough this was one of the first track sessions where I was becoming faster each time out. Likely due to getting more and more comfortable with a track pads. The tires are still my largest limiter and I cannot corner nearly as fast as I should. It will be interesting next season how much time I will shave off with new rubber and faster cornering speeds.

I will be out again in 2 weeks as my wife's due date for baby #2 is coming up soon in about 4 weeks so once the baby is here it will be it for my track days this year. I will at least have one session to try out the Sparco seat, I was flying around everywhere in the tight twisty corner yesterday - especially during the few back to back corners where I now no longer hit the brakes.

I had another handful of people come up to me and ask about the car and how long I've been driving. There was a huge Subie group out in their WRX's that was really interested in the car which was pretty neat. A few of them thought my car was s/c and were surprised to hear it was an NA 2zr. In a sea of Mustangs and WRX's people apparently love seeing a Yaris rip around the corners at the limit. There is a large radius turn where people sit and watch behind a big concrete median and I noticed that many of the big V8 cars out there weren't pushing nearly as hard at the corner but instead relying on the big engines to pull them fast into the straight out of the corner. They typically cornered at about 60km/h. When I got more comfortable with the corner I was able to get up to about 78km/h with the tires screaming. People apparently loved watching that. I was also able to get the point by multiple times from a Celica GT-S (haven't seen one of those around here for years)

Like I said before, driving a slow car fast is much more rewarding than a fast car slow. I'm hoping to break the 1:30 next time out and then that will be it for me this year. Time to save up for a long tube header, new gauges and new 100tw tires.