First time taking M3 to track... Need help!

[crash32]

Hey guys, I have replaced my Audi A5 with a 2013 e92 M3. I went to my very first HPDE with my A5 and I loved it. I have already signed up for my second one.... VIR is only half an hour away from my house.
After 2 track sessions I was able to push my Audi pretty hard on the track (hard in my opinion might not be hard in someone else's opinion). I had nearly new brake pads on my A5 and worn them down completely by the end of the weekend. I also had Michelin PSS with only 5,000 miles on them before the event and worn them out pretty good. They looked like someone took a torch onto them. The sidewalls also took some abuse (I was at 35 psi cold) and the temp that weekend was in the low 60's.
Keep in mind I was pushing around a 4,300 pound car (awd) doing tons of 125-40 stops as we had 10 track sessions that weekend.
With that being said I am a bit worried/nervous as to what to expect from my M3 at my next HPDE event. Granted the M3 is a much much more track oriented and a much more capable vehicle.... but at the same time that is what worries me.
Instead of going 125-40.... I now will be doing 140+ to 40 stops as a stock M3 can easily get up to 140 on both straightways at VIR. Suspension (I will be on springs) and weight will be better than my A5 thus entering in corners much faster. I am worried about how the factory brakes will hold up as well as the tires.
Any suggestions? I don't want to look like a tool with after market brakes and racing compound tires in D class lol. I never want to be "that" guy.
Any help would be tremendously appreciated.

[1MOREMOD]

If you are new to the sport take your time. No need to force the car too hard. If worried about edge wear need camber plates, different technique and different set of wheels/tires. Same goes for brakes, can try fluid and pad change and should be fine. New drivers are harder on brakes because over slow for entry. Take what the car gives you at any level and upgrade as you go.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Watch out with your username on the track !

[Groundpilot]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

Watch out with your username on the track !

I agree lol. First thing i would do, change that name to something more optimistic

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by Groundpilot

I agree lol. First thing i would do, change that name to something more optimistic

Yeah , something like crash0 sounds better than crash32

[Kong Sheng Han]

I would recommend using high temp fluid like Motul RBF600. First event, that was the only change I made to brakes. Maybe bring an extra set of pads and/or get track pads.

[crash32]

Lol, it's my nickname for when I used to work at the golf course when I was in highschool lol. Completely unrelated vehicles!
At the bare minimum should I do a fresh brake fluid flush with some type of race pads? Should I attempt my first session with the factory pads or would that be a big no no?

[Groundpilot]

I would recommend castrol SRF brake fluid, PFC-08 pads and camber plates to save your tires and improve handling.
Once you get faster, you can spend more money for good coiloves, BBK, aero, some weight reduction...

[crash32]

Are there pads that have decent street manners or is it a must to change pads prior to the event and then change back to factory pads afterwards?

[crash32]

Also would the camber plates help save my tires that much? It's just a bit depressing to see $1,000 plus tires go down the drain in one weekend! 80% of the wear was at the outter part of my tires which is why I was asking how much the plates would benefit me.
Maybe it would be worth it for me to purchase aftermarket wheels/tires for the HPDE events.

[Groundpilot]

these pads are ok on the street. I leave them on between track days and only change them when they are done.
Could be a little noisy when they are cold, but not too bad. In my case anyway.

[1MOREMOD]

Camber plates will change obviously front camber so outer edge isn't getting overly worked. Would add that and proper alignment before you buy more tires, upgraded tires will wear the edges just the same.

[Kong Sheng Han]

Originally Posted by crash32

Are there pads that have decent street manners or is it a must to change pads prior to the event and then change back to factory pads afterwards?

Originally Posted by crash32

Also would the camber plates help save my tires that much? It's just a bit depressing to see $1,000 plus tires go down the drain in one weekend! 80% of the wear was at the outter part of my tires which is why I was asking how much the plates would benefit me.
Maybe it would be worth it for me to purchase aftermarket wheels/tires for the HPDE events.

I use PFC 08 on the street, and they work fine. Use them with Motul RBF600 and make sure rotor life is good, and you should be good to go.

I don't know how much camber you have up front, but -0.6° on my 328 caused my two day old tires to start chunking. Would highly recommend camber plates.

[swftiii]

Welcome to the cost of the track. Everything is give or take and like others have said take it slow. I have not tracked the M3 yet, but wouldn't go nuts on stuff until you have taken it to ther track. You should do a brake flush, good condition pads, and no matter what your tires are going to wear out fast - this is what happens at the track. The weight savings will help a lot, but smoother driving (which comes from seat time) will also help too. Smooth transition to brakes, get your braking done early in the brake zone (it is common for new students to be soft on the brakes early and then hard at the end - this is harder on the brakes then hard early and coming off smoothly at the end), then roll into the turn quickly and smoothly, transition to squeezing the 'go' pedal and unwind the steering wheel using all of the track.

As a point of reference, I come from 15 years of track DE, Club Racing, and Instructing in another marquee, but am going to start my stock M3 with track pads, Castrol SRF, and street tires. From there we will see where to go.

Biggest thing for your second trip to the track is fluid, fresh brake pads, safe tires and work on having fun and learning to drive smoothly. Smooth is much faster than when there are a lot of overly aggressive inputs that feel fast.

Go and have a fun and safe time.

Skip

[dparm]

Just get new brake fluid in there (and tires and brake pads, depending on how bad they are) and use the first few track days to learn how the car behaves. It's quite good in stock form.

[Groundpilot]

Originally Posted by crash32

Also would the camber plates help save my tires that much? It's just a bit depressing to see $1,000 plus tires go down the drain in one weekend! 80% of the wear was at the outter part of my tires which is why I was asking how much the plates would benefit me.
Maybe it would be worth it for me to purchase aftermarket wheels/tires for the HPDE events.

Yes, they would. And negative camber with proper alignment will improve your cars handling dramatically. Which means you will be faster.
I would say that this is a must mod for this car.
Your tires go down the drain sooner or later, but they will wear evenly if your alignment is done correctly.

[redpriest]

Originally Posted by Groundpilot

I would recommend castrol SRF brake fluid, PFC-08 pads and camber plates to save your tires and improve handling.
Once you get faster, you can spend more money for good coiloves, BBK, aero, some weight reduction...

This ^^^^. PFC08 is fantastic on stock brake system. Just make sure you change them out, they are pretty hard on the rotors and on your ears on the street. My rotors wore out faster than the pad because I was too lazy to change, haha.

I am using Castrol SRF with my AP racing BBK. It's pretty much put in and forget - done 24 or so track days with the SRF and have not had to bleed the brakes once. It's worth the extra $$$ for that alone.

I didn't get camber plates until I had wasted two sets of tires because I corded the outer edge while the inner half and middle were still good. $500 investment for not wasting $1000 on tires.

[macdude357]

Regarding tire pressures, you probably want to start out with lower cold pressures (maybe around 32) and check the pressures after each session and bleed off anything over 38 or so (these are just rough guidelines but if you were 35 cold, you probably hit well over 40 hot which isn't good).

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by crash32

Are there pads that have decent street manners or is it a must to change pads prior to the event and then change back to factory pads afterwards?

Running OEM is probably fine for a while if you're a novice, but StopTech Street Performance or (from what I've read) Ferodo DS2500 are as close as you'll get to decent performance on track without compromising on street livability in terms of noise and dust. I got them because the OEM pads left uneven pad deposits that caused horribly steering shudder under braking for a month until I ended up replacing my pads and rotors, which was when I got the StopTechs, so I'd get them sooner rather than later. Or on the full track pad front, the PFC 08 pads that everyone is recommending here are solid. I ran them on the track in my front calipers after I stopped using the StopTech pads there, although I kept them in the rear full-time mostly because I was too lazy to change all four corners every time. On the street, the 08s are usable, but when they make noise it's incredibly loud and absolutely nails on a chalkboard, and they will definitely eat through rotors when used that way, so I don't recommend doing that. However (and you'll get differing opinions here), I'd actually recommend keeping away from full track pads entirely while you're still a novice. They bite much harder, will easily overwhelm PSS tires and therefore trigger ABS if you don't modulate them properly, and will generally make it much more difficult to be smooth when you'll have plenty to work on in that area already. Of course the other argument is that brake pads are a safety item and therefore you should maximize their potential. Both sides have merit IMHO, and I don't have experience at VIR to provide track-specific insight here.

But get better fluid. If you'll be doing more than 4 track days per year, pony up for Castrol SRF so you don't have to deal with bleeds in between annual flushes. If you'll be doing less, then Motul or Endless is perfectly fine, but more than that with those fluids and you'll need to bleed them every 3-4 track days to avoid a soft pedal.

Originally Posted by crash32

Also would the camber plates help save my tires that much? It's just a bit depressing to see $1,000 plus tires go down the drain in one weekend! 80% of the wear was at the outter part of my tires which is why I was asking how much the plates would benefit me.
Maybe it would be worth it for me to purchase aftermarket wheels/tires for the HPDE events.

Camber plates won't help tire life much in my experience, but if you're killing tires in a weekend you're overdriving the car. Before camber plates I got about 6 track days out of my front tires before the outsides were corded/chunked; with camber plates I got about the same amount, though granted I was getting faster by leaps and bounds back then since it was early, so that may have been nullifying the longevity benefit of the camber plates. The rear tires lasted longer, but I can't remember by how much. The appeal of camber plates for me initially was preserving tires, but obviously that didn't work out, although the handling improvement was welcome. The real solution was getting Yoko AD08R tires; their stiffer sidewall resists rollover much better, so they didn't prematurely wear on the outside. I got something like 12 track days out of those. I didn't want to deal with the cost and storage/swap hassle of dedicated track wheels (which is why I was so happy the AD08Rs proved to be a perfect full-time tire for me), but if you're open to it, APEX ARC-8 or EC-7 wheels are both track proven here and very inexpensive; the most popular setup is 18x10 ET25 all around with 265 or 275/35-18 tires. And if you get camber plates, get Vorshlag's. They make no noise (when installed properly) and introduce no ride quality or even ride height changes. -2.5 camber and 1/16" toe-in (or 0 toe) is a solid dual-purpose setup.

If you feel like a lot more reading, I actually wrote a two-part article for my local BMW CCA chapter's newsletter recounting my experience getting into HPDEs with this car, covering what people considering HPDEs might want to know and how my mods progressed and why. I've attached them to this post below.

And lastly on a general note, the E9x M3 has been around since late 2007, so it's reasonable to assume the question of what to do on one's first track day in an M3 or first track day ever has already been asked many times. If you're not familiar with the "site:" modifier on Google, it allows you to limit a search to a particular domain if you know what you want to find is there, so for example try Googling "First track day site:m3post.com".

Article links:
Attachment 999723
Attachment 999724

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by macdude357

Regarding tire pressures, you probably want to start out with lower cold pressures (maybe around 32) and check the pressures after each session and bleed off anything over 38 or so (these are just rough guidelines but if you were 35 cold, you probably hit well over 40 hot which isn't good).

Dead on. OP, with PSS, you want 38-39 hot as measured immediately after getting out of the car after pulling into the paddock from a cooldown lap. That usually means roughly 32 cold for a novice. Get a decent tire pressure gauge and be diligent about measuring them right away, not a few minutes after you're parked.

[jphughan]

OP you should also look into insurance. Read the exclusions on comprehensive coverage in your regular policy to see what it says, and if you see something you don't like (which is becoming increasingly common), then look into places like OnTrackInsurance and Lockton HPDE Insurance -- unless of course you're prepared to write off your M3. But do not plan on perpetrating fraud as a contingency!! In addition to the whole personal integrity issue, there was a recently reported case of a guy who crashed a new M4 on track and tried to claim it as a highway incident. Insurance is now going after him for the $65K payout and criminal fraud charges.

[swartzentruber]

Originally Posted by jphughan

OP you should also look into insurance. Read the exclusions on comprehensive coverage in your regular policy to see what it says, and if you see something you don't like (which is becoming increasingly common), then look into places like OnTrackInsurance and Lockton HPDE Insurance -- unless of course you're prepared to write off your M3. But do not plan on perpetrating fraud as a contingency!! In addition to the whole personal integrity issue, there was a recently reported case of a guy who crashed a new M4 on track and tried to claim it as a highway incident. Insurance is now going after him for the $65K payout and criminal fraud charges.

+1. I think a lot of people new to HPDEs just assume insurance will over them. Depending on the track you run at, your risk can be a bit different, but $300 - $500 is money well spent to not write off a $40k car.