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Picked up my Pro yesterday. Unfortunately we don't get to chose spec here in the UK, just colour (some idiot in UK head office thought this would make the cars more desirable).
I've not driven a face-lifted GTR so the facelift dash etc was all new to me as well. New dash is great, centre console controls feel clunky, new wheel is much better (thinner) but covered in buttons, that's going to annoy me I know it.
I've only driven 50 miles in the car so far so no real impressions on driving. The car does feel much tighter and direct than the old one, the suspension setup is significantly stiffer than the old GTR even with it's stock settings which was a surprise.
Does anyone know what AMG Dynamic actually does? The manual is very light on explanation of the different modes.
So I finally ran the car in and got it out on circuit this week. Two days at Dijon-Prenois in France. Excellent circuit if you ever get the chance, hasn't really changed since F1 last raced there in the 80s. Long sequences of corners, good elevation changes and a nice old school vibe.
Brakes are much improved! Out the box braking was good and consistent over a proper fast session.
All a bit cliched but the car does feel tighter and sharper than my old GTR. More feed back too.
The car had none of the low speed understeer that seemed to characterise the old GTR(stock) to begin with but it started to show up towards the end of the first day, on closer inspection the car was absolutely shredding its front tyres, cord is showing after not quite 2 days on circuit. The rears still have at least a full day on circuit left in them despite plenty of oversteery moments exiting corners.
I think partly its me, my other track car that I've been using most of the summer has tremendous front end grip so I think I've been working the front end of the GTR a lot harder than I did before. However I don't think that counts for all of it and the new car is definitely working those front tyres a lot harder too. I have another day at Silverstone next month with a race engineer to do some work on the car and hopefully balance out the grip and wear rates front to rear.
Electronics seemed to have moved on a bit, because the car was new and we had a real mix of conditions I tried out a lot of settings including the slippery setting which was surprisingly good for splashing round a soaking track. ESP Sport has more slip than my old car and does its thing very subtly, ESP with the dial is fine but the intervention is much harsher than ESP Sport which was a little annoying.
I still have absolutely no idea what AMG dynamics does, there's nothing in the manual and playing with the settings seemed to have little or no effect. New built in track pace system is excellent although it does have some issues with circuit limits and accused me of cheating a few times.
FWIW I ran lots of 1:29s, firmly in the mix with the 991.2 GT3RS's that were there.
Worth the cost to change over my 15k mile 17 GTR? Not really I think I could have got similar results with 10-15k worth of mods. But I'm happy enough if this car buys me access to a blackseries.
What cold psi did you start them at, as you should be shooting for around 33 psi ‘hot’.
Have you had the alignment checked/adjusted? The inherent understeer in my regular GTR is essentially gone when I use the ZP Michelin’s; (more grip and wider tyres), and having more - camber dialed in.
Great to hear you love the car and that you’re happy with the brakes. Since iirc the only difference in the brakes is the OEM ducts, they must be working to keep down temps.
What cold psi did you start them at, as you should be shooting for around 33 psi ‘hot’.
Have you had the alignment checked/adjusted? The inherent understeer in my regular GTR is essentially gone when I use the ZP Michelin’s; (more grip and wider tyres), and having more - camber dialed in.
Great to hear you love the car and that you’re happy with the brakes. Since iirc the only difference in the brakes is the OEM ducts, they must be working to keep down temps.
Bish
No, does not come with the ZP tyre. These are not easily available in the UK either (except from MB at massive cost). I never pay any attention to cold pressures(why would you) I'm only concerned with hot pressures, we usually run 33psi but varied this on the second day as it became clear there was an issue with wear, no improvements there though.
I've done nothing with the alignment, I don't think there's any issues there but whatever they've done provides more grip at the cost of tyre wear I think. Leaving a track day with knackered fronts and decent rears in a car like the GTR is odd!
Yes the ducts and the wing vents are the only changes. I was curious if they would be effective as they appear less "sophisticated" than the renntech/tikt ones. When checking tyre pressures it was very noticeable how much less heat was coming off the brakes this was despite having the front discs glowing red when out on track.
No, does not come with the ZP tyre. These are not easily available in the UK either (except from MB at massive cost). I never pay any attention to cold pressures(why would you) I'm only concerned with hot pressures, we usually run 33psi but varied this on the second day as it became clear there was an issue with wear, no improvements there though.
I've done nothing with the alignment, I don't think there's any issues there but whatever they've done provides more grip at the cost of tyre wear I think. Leaving a track day with knackered fronts and decent rears in a car like the GTR is odd!
Yes the ducts and the wing vents are the only changes. I was curious if they would be effective as they appear less "sophisticated" than the renntech/tikt ones. When checking tyre pressures it was very noticeable how much less heat was coming off the brakes this was despite having the front discs glowing red when out on track.
Perhaps a better term would be ‘tyre pressures before heading out on track’, but it seems the convention is to simply state ‘cold’. And it is important even though ‘hot’ pressures are of course what we’re aiming for, since knowing what others use as a ‘starting/cold’ psi prior to going out on track in order to achieve a certain ‘hot’ psi is useful data.
If you shagged out the outside of your front tyres, there is no doubt that the front alignment needs more - camber. I’m running -2.5 at all four corners and tyre wear is even across the carcass.
Great colour!
No idea about the different dynamic settings. Just set it to Master and forgetaboutit.
So I popped into MBWorld in the UK today (I have a CEL) and got chance to ask one of their driving instructors about AMG Dynamics.
Apparently AMG Dynamics can best be described as adjusting the time delay before TC/Stability (whatever is on) kicks in. Kind of makes sense for certain situations ie in the wet you might want to run quite conservative TC but you want to give yourself a decent size window to sort it out yourself if you can.
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