Hi everyone,

I have a 2008 stock c63 with 23,000 km and have decided to take her to the race track for the first time next weekend .

I plan on doing a brake flush before and an oil change with liqui moly, and also add motul mocool into my rad.

What do you think? What should I do during and after track?

All advice will be welcomed, thanks!

Gord

 

Brake fluid flush is a good idea (use Motul 600 or Castrol SRF). I recommend against doing anything with the engine cooling - that is rock solid. Also changing to a different oil is unnecessary.

Way more important is to get a good tire pressure gauge and use it to lower your pressures to 34 PSI or so before you track the car. If you push the car really hard, you may get high engine oil temps, but pre-facelift cars with torque converter are less susceptible to that.

Other than that: Make sure you have >50% brake pad liner left and your tires are OK.

For the rest, enjoy!

 

Thank you wobble64!

What's your thoughts in:

- steel braided brake lines
- delete secondary cat and resonators
- flash ECU

 

A good ECU tune should bring you about 50 hp. Secondary cats and resonator will not make a big difference. If you want to make a big difference in the exhaust area you need long tube headers, possibly with cat delete, that would give you another 40 hp or so. Steel braided brake lines you will not feel.

All of that will fade in importance compared to learning how to drive well, followed by tires.

I would not overthink it and jump the gun. Start tracking and see how it goes, then Invest step by step.

Many true racers leave the engines stock and focus on suspension, tires and brakes first. I know of Mazda Miatas going faster around the track with 120hp than a C63 more than 550 and with an inexperienced driver. That is somewhat humbling but very telling.

 

^^ agree with wobble

I'm actually hitting a road course this weekend also.

I've heard our cars are very sensitive and can go into limp mode easily with elevated temps.

Any thing to prevent?

 

The issue with limp mode is engine oil temperature. The oil cooler capacity is insufficient for tracking especially for FL cares with MCT. Once engine oil temperature hits approx. 284F, the car goes into limp mode until it cools down.
There are 2 solutions described in detail on this forum: An air baffle going into the space between grille and radiator that is cheap and helps alleviate the issue (search for 'keeping it cool'). The other one is the oil cooling upgrade 44O (the last letter is an O not a zero). That one is more expensive but eliminates the issue completely by installing 2 larger oil coolers. I have tracked in 100F weather as hard as I could with that and never reached 260F oil temperature. My car is now completely thermally healthy.

Short of that, all you can do is drive the car without constantly revving it high. Given temperatures have cooled down in most places, you may not have an issue - depending on where you will track.

 

Agree, altho my FL always does it consistently at exactly 278F. Shifting a little earlier if using the paddles helps. If you're letting the tranny control the shifts, running in C instead of S or S+ does the same thing. If the oil gets hot and the car loses power, you need to slow the pace a bit and let it cool down. Once oil temp gets back below 278 things will return to normal. That usually happens quickly - 20 to 30 seconds.

 

Agree the trans in S+ downshifts far too aggressively for how I drive at least. Relies on the trans to slow the car down far more than necessary - I'd always rather let my brakes do more work, even before the upgrade. As we used to say back in the day, brakes are cheaper than clutches (replace with "MCT trans"). I like to wind it out higher than those modes allow as well. IMO driving smooth and fast in M+ will keep your car far cooler than in any auto mode. Add the cooling plate and you'll be fine in anything but mid-summer temps. After that you'll need the cooling package like Wobble said above.

Other than that, just a good check-up of maintenance items as stated previously. Check your tires, suspension, brakes, oil, etc and make sure everything is to spec.

FYI, my 12 coupe seems to like 38F/37R tire pressures with Michelin PSS in general.

 

Is that hot pressures or cold?

 

Hot. Tested with my pyrometer.

 

Jim,
I get a whopping 8-10 PSI pressure increase on my tires when tracking. That is why I start somewhere at 32-34 range - and end up with 42-44 PSI. I frankly did not dare to go below 32 cold thus far. 42-44 hot still sounds high, but starting at say 28 is so much below the recommended pressure by Mercedes, that I have so far hesitated to go there.


Where do you start?

 

If I recall correctly I started around 32psi. I go by my pyrometer - if it's telling me that my tread is heating uniformly across, that's where I set it. After my last trackday, I do recall wanting to increase the pressures a bit for a bit less roll and flatter handling. I'll see how the first session at VIR goes and go from there.

BTW, for drag racing I start at around 26psi cold

 

FWIW, on the Michelin PSC2 tires you get really funky readings on the pyrometer, since the rubber compound varies across the width of the tire. And it is more complex than I thought - there are multiple stripes of different rubber. You can tell on where the rubber melts (sticky R-compound) and where it does not (hard tread life compound) when driven hard on track. During street driving you can't tell from looking at it.

:-)

 

Gord

What tires are you going to run? Like the guys said previously in the thread, just concentrate on driving safe first. Put car trans in S and leave it. You are going to have so much going on around you that that's the last thing you need to worry about. Mainly, listen to your instructor. They are going to be your best source of info and will hopefully keep you from getting into too much trouble.

Guys, you still might be running the PSS's a little low. It was my experience (20 - 25 sets run at the track) that they like higher pressures than say R888's or NT01's. Granted you guys are coupes, but they had a tendency to roll and chunk the outside shoulder until the pressures were closer to the higher side. My .02 cents.

 

LOL, now you sound like a true instructor!!

I'll be on PSC2s (255 in front, 305s in the rear). And camber plates, because I have chewed up tire shoulders before. And I usually run in S+ all the time - no temperature issues whatsoever.

Monday will be low 60s and sunny in Danville!!

 

Ha, the last thing I want to do is get in a car with some reckless a-hole student with a powerful car with weak brakes and all season tires talking about wanting to see how fast he can get his car to go!!

I'm going to call and set up our dinner reservation for Sunday night tomorrow. I'm thinking 730?

 

Perfect!

 

This is my old track day checklist:

 

Hey, I have a longer one!

To be honest I have never taken everything on there, but most items.

 

36. Bounty??

 

:-) The only acceptable paper towel. I work for P&G

 

Maybe it was Booty?

 

Interested to hear of people's experience with different (or OEM) pads for track use.

I'll be taking my standard C63 to track shortly and expect the brakes to be the weakest link. I'll have SRF on board all right but not sure what to use for pads. My OEMs have about 50% remaining so I suspect I may need to change on the day.

Any recommendations?

I've previously used Carbotech and CL brakes on a previous track toy but would like to hear the "group experience" of those that have taken their 63 to track.

 

I have used RacingBrake XT970 and cooked/cracked them. If you want to push your car and not worry, I would go for dedicated track pads. Unless you do that, there is no benefit from using anything but stock (which are not bad).
Once you decide for dedicated track pads, it is easy to find pads for the front (since e.g. a 2012 CTS-V has the same Brembo Caliper, hence CTS-V pads fit). The rear is more rare.


I have used RB XR70s but found them to only last me about 2 days at the track. Tried Hawk DTC70 and they are great, have huge stopping power, but are only available for the front.
I had Carbotech XP12s made for my car and 2 friends. We bought in bulk and paid about 500$ for a set of front and back. Heard great things about them from e.g. Corvette racers, but have yet to test them on the C63. One of us will test them mid January - we will know more then.


Other than that you can get pads made by Pagid or Endless, but then you are in the range of 1000$ for a set for all 4 corners. I have also heard good things, but have not personally tested those.


On the hard core tracking front, it is still work in progress. If you are just beginning, you are probably just fine with the OEM pads. As said, they are not bad and good value if bought via mailorder e.g. from oediscountparts.com. If you really get them hot, they will wear quickly - take a set of spares.


There you have it! :-)

 

Thank you so much for your prompt and informative reply. I've been doing track days in a Ferrari 360 for several years and I've become reasonably competent so I think I'll probably find myself pushing on pretty hard in the 63 and expect to start hitting certain OEM limits quite quickly.

I have found a reasonable price/post option for the DTC70s on Ebay using the CTS-V option so I think I'll go ahead and order them just to have something on stand-by.

How do these cars tend to wear their pads anyway? Is it two fronts for every set of rears or more evenly matched than that? I could always order up a spare set of OEMs for the rear if the wear rate isn't too great.

I used the Xp8's followed by the Xp10s on the 360. I actually found the 8s were the better pad for the 360 as it was easier to modulate and trailbrake. The car is only 1370Kg so it takes quite a lot less braking force than the 63 and probably needs to slow down less to get around corners also so the 12s are probably the way to go with the 63 all right. I'd be very keen to hear your report after use if you could post back here for the benefit of all?

I used the 360 mostly for track and occasional driving trips. The Xp pads squealed like a banshee. I could live with them given the only occasional "normal" road use but could not live with that noise on the 63 as it is my main daily car. The pads were excellent on the 360 and lasted a very long time without causing undue wear on the discs. I finally changed to the CL pads (RC6E) because I wanted to try out a pad that I could swap in/out for track days, thereby allowing a regular pad for road use. The Xp pads can't really be swapped in and out as they rely on film transfer to the disc which a road pad would scrub off and they would then require re-bedding and cooling.