Quote:
Originally Posted by redpepperracing
I'm surprised no-one mentioned education and experience. Better to increase your skills first, before changing the power or handling.
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+1
While I agree with Radium King's mechanical suggestions, before you spend a bunch of money on mechanical items you'd be more effective working on your skills first.
Do you:
1. Hit track-in, apex, and track-out effectively? Are you early or late apexing when you shouldn't be? No corner creep, no kinda close apexes, no half-assed track out. I drive in advanced run groups and I see lots of guys with fast cars miss an apex by an entire car width, then go flying down the straight because they have 400-500 hp and think they're fast. Their car is fast but they're not. Corner creep makes your turning radius sharper and not fully tracking out reduces your ability to accelerate an extra .1 sec. 10 corners X .1 = 1 sec faster.
2. Trail brake? You need to do this to keep your car balanced at corner entry, in addition to being able to carry more speed into the corner. That means you can move your brake pt further (deeper) into the corner. A balanced car is a happy car.
3. Turn through esses or drive thru them? If you're turning thru them, you're losing time and an acceleration zone. The key to esses is to early apex the entry, then late apex the exit. This will create a straight line thru them and allow you to actually accelerate thru them rather than hang on while you turn thru both.
4. Video your sessions? You want to have a shot from over your shoulder so you can see what you're doing in addition to where you're going on the track. You will make huge improvements if you start videoing your sessions. You'll be surprised what you're actually doing vs what you think you're doing.
5. Collect track data? Analytics is an emerging technology. Lots of data available, just don't get caught up in it while you're on the track. Analyze it after your drive, as you need to focus on driving while on the track.
6. Do lots of DEs per year? Doing 1 or 2 per year isn't going to make you better. When you're new, you need track time. And you need to use video and analytics after your events to improve. We have a new father / son combo with some very fast / expensive 911s in our club. They show up for half a day, do 2, maybe 3 sessions, then leave. They're not very good and won't get better with that little track time, but if you ask them, they're the bomb. Dangerous combo.
You'll never turn a Boxster into a GT3 without adding a 0 to your kitty. A $2000 budget for mechanical items will make your car faster, but that's only good if you're going against other Boxsters. Those improvements will not make you competitive with the hoard of late model track weapons that fill today's DE grids. Make yourself a better driver so it doesn't matter what you're driving. The first 3 items I suggested are free while 4 & 5 will easily fit in your budget.