Z4 first trackday (Bedford) advice please

[JSz4]

Had my 3.0i Z4 6 years and finally getting it on track with Bedford Autodrome trackday booked next week.

Cars standard apart from B12 suspension, strut brace, M3 CSL alignment, 3.0SI front brakes, drilled discs, yellowstuff pads, braided brake lines and ATE200 fluid. Goodyear Eagle F1 tyres

I've tracked previous cars but they've all been less powerful and none FR (civic vti, MR2 mk2 and mk3).

Looking forward to it but bit apprehensive and was wondering if anyone has any advice regarding both the car and track.

It's going to be about 24 degrees so what tyre pressures would be good to start with, 30/33? On the road the Goodyears feel like they've got pretty soft squirmy sidewalls, particularly at the back, which don't inspire confidence so not sure how low I should go.

Is it best to turn off the traction/stability control to avoid it overheating rear brakes?

Would appreciate any advice re Bedford, such as corner/gear selection and which corners are just a lift etc.

Cheers for any advice.

Jeremy

[AndyBeech]

Had my 3.0i Z4 6 years and finally getting it on track with Bedford Autodrome trackday booked next week.

Awesome! Good track, enjoy it!

It's going to be about 24 degrees so what tyre pressures would be good to start with, 30/33? On the road the Goodyears feel like they've got pretty soft squirmy sidewalls, particularly at the back, which don't inspire confidence so not sure how low I should go.

Not used those tyres myself, for the few times I used road tyres though I tried to run a bit more pressure hot, 32F/34R. Have to experiment a bit TBH. If you feel the sidewalls are soft on the road though prepare to have a lot of wear on outer fronts at the end of the day, though this is depending how you hard you push it / sessions lengths. I'm running track semi's and -2.5 front camber and the outer fronts (mostly offside) still take a pasting. The geo you have probably has around -1.5 camber so your gonna be really on them so just bear it in mind and keep an eye on them.

My advice keep your sessions short, 15 mins or so, and do a slow build up lap out the pits to bring the pressures up and a decent cool down lap. Bedford is pretty heavy on tyres.

Is it best to turn off the traction/stability control to avoid it overheating rear brakes?

Yes if you can. I'm not sure how well the standard brakes are on yours but again, Bedford is very heavy on brakes so expect fade and keep a close eye on the pads. Yellowstuff are fast road pads IIRC so again bring them in slowly on the out lap and a good cool down lap.

Would appreciate any advice re Bedford, such as corner/gear selection and which corners are just a lift etc.

Sounds like your pretty experienced in track days but my advice without being patronising would be get some instruction in the morning to help you out. I can't really give you any advice as my car has quite different specs so wouldn't be fair to advise based on that. Generally speaking though, the kerbs will save you plenty of time if your happy to use them and be careful not to overcook the last corner, plenty of run off but also quite easy to spin it! I have a video of doing it in my M if it'll help you though, it's a pretty steady-ish pace.
Dan on here has also done Bedford in his 3.0 so should be able to help

Take it easy and just build up to a pace that your car is happy with, enjoy!

[R60BBA]

@JSz4

In addition to Beech, I recommend the following:

- 26/28 psi (cold) on the pressures
- do a few laps at moderate pace with DSC on to learn the track, then once you are comfortable turn DSC off. Seeing as it will be a relatively hot day the tyres will grip and as you mentioned doing a track day with DSC on can accelerate rear brake pad wear and also unsettle the car at times which is not ideal
- keep the stints short (~10 mins)
- never been to Bedford but would recommend watching YouTube videos of seasoned drivers before to get a gist of the layout, lines and corner speeds etc.

Most importantly have lots of fun and enjoy your day!

[brillomaster]

if you've tracked MR2s in various forms, you'll be fine in a zed. similar short wheelbase means if the back goes, it goes quite quickly, but thats the same in an MR2 i expect, except probably harder to recover.

bedford is a fun track, been there loads over the years. nothing too difficult about it, have fun!

one thing i did with my z4 in the past is, if you have a pre facelift car, remove the front fog lights, and the access panel cover in the front wheel well. z4s dont seem to have any front brake cooling, and you'll need to go steady on ebc yellows to last the day, depending on how hard you push. though i suspect the tyres will be the limiting factor as to how hard you can push - GY eagle F1s are great road tyres, but can overheat and go a bit soft if you lean on them too much.

[bigwinn]

The track is superb- depending on which part you will be on I can’t recall corner advice etc. however the biggest point of note for me when I went there a few years back was the distinct lack of Armco- you could really push it without too much fear of properly stacking it

[JSz4]

Thanks everyone for the advice, really appreciate it.

Good to have advice on the tyres pressures, they Goodyears have only done a few thousand miles so keen not to completely melt them! Given the temperature I'll maybe not drop them too much to start with. I'll keep the sessions short as recommended, maybe a warm up, 2 or 3 laps and a cool down. Andybeech do you mean you ran the pressures 32/34 when hot, eg when checked immediately after a session?

I'll keep an eye on the brake pads and take it easy on them as Bedford is long way from home! Will turn the DSC off when comfortable, had the fluid changed two weeks ago so hopefully will help. Will certainly look in to fog light mod before the next one.

Unfortunately all the instructor sessions were fully booked but just hoping there might be some cancellations on the day as know from previous experience what a difference it makes. Been watching plenty of laps on youtube to try and learn layout and lines.

Unfortunately just realised I only have one towing bolt so really hoping friend's mini one will fit as assume I need towing eyes rear as well as front??

[brillomaster]

normally just front is fine. theres so much run off and grass at bedford that they normally recover any vehicles just under waved yellows which is great for track time. theres only two bits of gravel - a small bit protecting the pit exit, and then a large trap on the exit of turn one - which is really slippery in the wet, though in the dry you should be fine.

you could always consider getting some spare front brake pads, just in case... just whatever is cheapest and then you'd be sure you can get home ok. easy enough to change trackside, you just need a 7mm allen key, and a g clamp or similar to push the piston back in.

[TheDan]

Agree with all what is said above.

Little bit of experience from my side at Bedford... First time I went I used yellowstuffs with standard 3.0i discs. I wore through them in a day and had to limp the hour home with screechy metal on metal brakes (which Andy might remember ). So its either worth taking a spare set of pads, going easy on the brakes or upgrading the pads before you go to DS3000, bluestuffs or better.

You absolutely can use yellowstuffs though, but if you get brake fade or a soft pedal, immediately slow down and use them as little as possible to cool them then come in. As others have said, Bedford is unusually heavy on brakes.

[SDJ]

I tried brand new yellow stuff pads at Blyton and wore through 60% in just the morning, so had to go easy for the rest of the day. They are relatively cheap, but a false economy, unfortunately.
If its the full circuit, the straight is unusually long which won't help the brakes. When I was there I ended up accelerating up to 90, then cruising through the chicane at that speed to save the brakes and fuel.
It's a safe fun track though, I'm sure you'll have fun.
Turn the TC off straight away. You'd do well to hit anything there and you're on a trackday to learn the handling of the car. Plus it's got much more grip than power in the dry.
Have fun

[JSz4]

Thanks for all the advice, I really enjoyed it but was pretty rusty and spent the morning driving round like I was on the road but managed to get an instructor session in the afternoon who tried to got me breaking a lot harder, carrying more speed in to the apex and getting on the accelerator earlier. There weren't too many stock-ish roads cars like Z4, majority were track prepped or more high end (including Atoms, GT3s and a Ferrari SF90) so had to keep eyes on mirrors lot of the time!

After lots of trackdays in a little MR2 roadster with buckets, coilovers etc I underestimated how much of a change driving the Z4 would be. It felt a lot more of a challenge getting the breaking right as a lot heavier and arriving at the corners a lot faster and I struggled with confidence getting off the brakes and on the accelerator hard and early enough but all good learning.

The wide powerband and extra torque was so helpful compared to previous Japanese cars which felt between gear choices for many corners.

The yellowstuff pads made it to the end of the day as I' hadn't been using them hard enough in the morning but couldn't believe how much brake dust they produced, side of car was pretty black!

Unfortunately during the morning I moved off line quite a few times in corners to let faster cars by instead of just easing off and indicating on the straights and ended up with an enormous amount of rubber stuck to my tyres in 4 or 5 tramlines all the way around so spent the rest of the day wobbling around on these which hopefully will drop off soon.

I did stop driving early as noticed the steering was noticeably off centre on the straights (pulling right), could this potentially be the result of pulling off line (to the righthand side) and collecting more rubber on right front wheel than left or probably just knocked out the alignment?

Cheers again

[Vanne]

carefull boys, that bug bites hard... stay a civilized Lat'e drinker while you can

but really..