Mux213 Levin GTS

[Knudsen]

The rings costs 2E a piece at Toyota, thats what i gave a couple of months ago

[Mux213]

OKay, nice little update here...

So me and Banpei started out saterday morning with my car. Took the exhaust off again because I had new gaskets for them. Also for the past too weeks my exhaust was bouncing off the body when idling making an awfull noice....

It was hanging way to much to the right so I hung it up correctly free of any body parts to slam into. Changed the gaskets and mounted everything up nicely. Cool stuff!

Did a quick check around the car only to find out my brake pads were near gone. I had checked them when I went to zandvoort and I still had usable pads, but now they were beyond dangerous...
So I rushed off to the store to get some new pads. Just normal ones for now, I will get something special another day.

Putting the brakepads on went relatively uneventfull however my front pistons were impossible to push back in. Had to take the calipers off so I could put some force on them, then they went right in.

Art was doing the rear pads and I was doing the front ones, trying to save some time. Rushing however is not a good thing and just when we were starting to get overconfident, we poped one of the pistons out of a rear caliper. WE ARE STUPID! Forgot to mount it up good before bleeding one of the other brakes.. In the process of putting it back together we ended up tearing the dust cover.

I ordered some new ones from toyota, I could only order a full rear brake rebuild set, jolly, so I am thinking of making my spare set of calipers good and putting them on the car.

It took us a couple of hours extra before we got the car back on its wheels, but i had to get it ready for sunday......

[Mux213]

With the new brake pads and all the brakes bled my car hardly had any braking power, what a letdown Now my brake has always been soft.... I drove around most of the saterday night trying to get the brakes driven in....

And then sunday came...

5:30 am, man it sucks getting up that late.
6:30 am, start the car up, leaving Lisse with my dad and Leon
The brakes are starting to give me confidence..
8:00 am, entered eindhoven to pick up Tim
Brakes are doing pretty good now, pedal is getting rock hard
9:15 am, crossed the border into germany..

Now here's a strange thing, my rear diff sings a bit, usually around 80kmph and 120 kmph. Its not to noice except around 130, but still. Entering germany I kept her at a steady 170. The car is SILENT at 170... Man that was nuts, the engine humming in the background, no noice from the diff, only the tires on that strange asfalt they got up there making noice. We could just talk normally in the car....

10:30 am, entering the car part at the holy grounds...

11:00 am, my hachis first run around the nurburgring!!

YEAH smashing man! that was way cool! The first lap was a bit of a let down, a motorcycle kept being in my way. They are way to fast on the straights but oh so slow in corners. And for small tiny things they are, they sure take up alot of space on the road.... sucked...

Second and third laps where the best. Tim besides me really helped as he knows the ring on the back of his hand. Except for downshifting a gear to low on the first lap I had pretty uneventfull laps. The only downside, my blasted brakes kept letting me down, I need to floor them to get a bit of braking power. Fading to the max. As soon as I left the ring and drove a bit around the countryside to cool the brakes my brakes would be rock solid again. After a lap on the ring, weak ass shit..

Fourth run was also alot of fun having a Z3 chase me most of the way. Only hairy moment was when I took the karosell wide because I wanted to let the Z3 passed (which he didn't) I got a motorcycle sneak up beside me without me seeing, I nearly ran him over but it went ok luckely...

Fifth run went a little less good, Tim hadn't joined me on the fourth and firth rounds so I was without my navigator. Eventually I ended up mixing to turns and entered a turn way to fast. As I dove into the corner the back came out and I did a totally invulentary but very cool 4 wheel 'drift' through that corner. Well I wouldn't call it a drift but it was wicked.

That round was my last of the day as spending 60 euro on a 5 round card was way to expensive already Still it was the most fun I had with my Hachi so far. GREAT STUFF!

Except for the brakes the hachi performed way beyond expectation. Sure its not as fast as the other stuff out there but it performed just fine. I also had no trouble at all with grip. The car behaved very predictable and only punished me twice for my own mistakes. Both times the back came out but the car remained fully controllable, very interesting experience indeed..

I've been looking around the sites but no pictures of the hachi showing up just yet

One thing is for sure, the hachi will see the ring again!

[Mux213]

Owh, and if anyone has suggestions what could be wrong with my brakes?

My old pads behaved pretty similar, at Zandvoort I also had some fading problems but I assumed the pads were at fault. But now with fresh pads I can't imagine that being the case.

The rotors seem to be in great shape aswell.. The previous owner had replaced them, that I know, and they look thick enough.

My guess would be its either that my brake lines are getting to weak, maybe its time to get some fresh lines?

Another guess might be that the brake booster has had its best time...

Last would be the brake fluid, I'm using dot 4, flushed most of the old fluid out, I can't imagine it being because of air because we bleeded the damn brakes 3 times with no air seeming to come out at all before we gave up and hoped the brake power would improve with time.

Indeed, now these past few days on normal roads the braking is great! But on the track they fade like crazy, it took 3 or 4 laps around zandvoort to make them soft. It took half a round of the ring to notice braking power decreased. I kept having braking power dont get me wrong, I just needed to floor the pedal to get them behaving correctly and I doubt I could have locked the tires at any rate...

[Knudsen]

Mux, stock brakepads just wont work on the track. Face it, you should have bought some "racing-pads" that can withstand the high temperatures. Im getting some Mintec some of the nearest days, ill let you know if they´re worth the cost

[Mux213]

Knudsen, I watned to by mintex aswell but just not yet. I wasn't even planning on buying these but after seeing me current ones....
but still, fading this fast, its hard to believe...

[senna]

ah, you have driven the nurburgring. Dangerous stuff my friend, but i agree, such a lot of fun

excellent you kept her in 1 piece

[Mux213]

Yeah, my hachi performed perfectly, no strange behaviour, its just glued to the road. Few parts on the ring where you feel her getting light as you go over a hill, but nothing too scary

Then again, its not the first time I was there and my navigator is a long time Nurburgring veteran

[Ian.G]

Hey mux,

glad you enjoyed the ring. Its one place I have never been fortunate to visit. I hope to rectify this later in the year.

Did you play any games with the ring in (project gotham 2, GT4, forza) before you did it in real life ? if so - did they help you understand the geography of the track a little more ?

One of my concerns with that place is that it would be easy to lose your bearings and forget which corner is coming next.

Hope you manage to track down some photographs soon.

[banpei]

mux213 Wrote:Art was doing the rear pads and I was doing the front ones, trying to save some time. Rushing however is not a good thing and just when we were starting to get overconfident, we poped one of the pistons out of a rear caliper. WE ARE STUPID! Forgot to mount it up good before bleeding one of the other brakes.. In the process of putting it back together we ended up tearing the dust cover.

Yeah, that sucked big time. Pretty stupid: I was busy changing the pads to the rear but couldn't get the old ones out. Blistered my thumb while doing and giving attention to that instead of fixing the brakes immediately and ofcourse forgetting to put back the caliper when helping out Mux with the front brakes...