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      03-25-2013, 06:23 PM   #45
RPiM5
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Rob that sounds and looks awesome!

Can't wait for ///M School next week!
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      03-25-2013, 07:10 PM   #46
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Thanks for the write-up Rob. Time to start looking at an Arial Atom!
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      03-26-2013, 01:40 PM   #47
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob///M5 View Post
Last weekend I got the F10 M5 out for two solid days of track time and instruction.

I ran the car with these settings:
  • Suspension--Sport Plus
  • Throttle--Sport Plus
  • Steering--Comfort
  • On day 1, I kept traction control on. Day 2 I used MDM mode.
A little late to this thread, but congrats on your first track day, Rob! Sounds like you had fun, which is definitely no surprise given the event and the machinery.

One suggestion I'd make if you track the M5 again is to switch your throttle to its lowest setting. It took me about a year tracking the M3 to figure that out. Initially I used Sport because that's what I used (and still use) on the road; I found Sport Plus is just undrivable even on the road in the M3, not sure about the M5. But although I find Sport's twitchiness fun on the road, I had a hunch that Normal might be better on the track, and boy did that experiment pay off! As your skill increases, you'll find that having smooth and precise control of the throttle is of paramount importance, because after you figure out the proper line and become smooth and consistent overall, the next big gains you'll see will be from improving your corner exit speed -- which requires you to be able to maintain and build speed IN the corner. That in turn requires careful throttle work (especially on a turbo car), and a throttle that's highly punchy, twitchy, and "compressed" (e.g. 5% pedal depression = 15% throttle, WOT comes @ 85% pedal depression) is exactly what you do NOT want in order to achieve that. If the M5 is anything like the M3, Normal is the setting that's completely linear and progressive, which IS what you want. The only factor that might work against this logic on the M5 is that Sport Plus throttle is the only mode that keeps the turbos constantly spooled, which is why you didn't experience any turbo lag. And on 6MTs, it's the only mode that disables automatic rev-matching. I think it's a bummer that BMW forces you to use the twitchiest throttle setting to keep the turbos on the boil and do your own rev-matching.

I also use Sport steering because I've found that heavier steering indirectly makes you smoother since the increased effort means you need more deliberate inputs, but that one is much more a matter of personal preference. I've always Porsche steering too light for me, but I know people who say my car's Sport setting is too heavy and makes the car feel several hundred pounds heavier.

As for MDM, I too use it, though I coded Euro MDM mode, which is way better on track as you get more skilled. Stability control on track is a controversial subject, but my take on it is this: If it's not getting in my way when I'm driving properly and only steps in after I've seriously screwed up and wouldn't be able to recover on my own, I will happily leave it on to save myself some potentially costly repairs -- which is exactly how Euro MDM works (normal MDM stepped in too often). HOWEVER, if you choose to leave it on, pay attention to whether it intervenes. If it does, check with your instructor and see whether it's probably intervening simply because you've exceeded its safety threshold or because you're driving improperly. The biggest mistake people who keep stability control on at the track make is to rely on it to let them get away with poor driving technique that would never work without the nannies on. As long as you're attentive to its activity, you should be fine.

And lastly, if you didn't do this over the weekend and would feel comfortable doing so later, definitely at some point ask your instructor to drive your car on the track while you ride along. There's no better way to stave off the "I need to buy mods to make my car go faster" syndrome than for someone experienced to show you how much more your car can do in its current form in the hands of a skilled driver. Not all instructors are willing to do this (especially with expensive cars), and make sure that whatever insurance policy you have covering you at an HPDE would also cover an instructor driving -- of the few carriers that cover HPDEs, most seem to though.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob///M5 View Post
I will not track again with PSS. They got eaten up quickly. Some was probably due to track heat and tire heat (pressures ran high for a run on day 2), but traction was also limited by these tires.

I'll probably get some aftermarket wheels for the road, and wrap the stocks in Yokohama slicks for track days.
I'll echo Bish's comments that you probably should NOT run slick or even R-comp/DOT competition tires until you get much more skilled -- and in fact many organizers forbid those tires for novice students precisely because they behave so differently (no audio feedback when you're about to exceed their grip limit, for example) and cover up mistakes. One middle of the road option would be the Extreme Summer Performance tires like Yoko AD08s, Bridgestone RE-11s, or Kumho Ecsta XSs. All that said, I run my road PSSes at the track and got 3 full weekends and 7K road miles out of them before I corded the very outside edges of my fronts. I'll be hopefully mitigating that issue with camber plates since the rest of the tires were fine and it was irritating to throw out two otherwise perfectly good tires just for extreme wear on the outer edge. And fwiw, at the track I try to keep my PSSes at 38-39 PSI measured HOT, i.e. the moment you get back into the paddock. Achieving that typically requires letting 2-3 PSI out of your tires if their cold pressures matched what's on your door sticker.

You'll also find that as you get more skilled, you'll probably go through tires LESS (but brakes more) because as a novice you're doing a lot of unnecessary cornering, experiencing excess understeer and scrubbing your front tires due to improper cornering technique. But that will get better as you do. And yes, the high ambient temperature definitely didn't help your tires either.

Glad you had a great time, Rob! Fair warning, though: The track gets addictive very, VERY quickly; I got hooked on my third weekend, which just so happened to be my first weekend in the dry with the M3.
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Last edited by jphughan; 03-26-2013 at 02:12 PM..
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