The racing season is over now and I wanted to combine the season wrap up and StopTech Big Brake Kit impressions into one. For those who have been attending or following the CSCS Time Attack season you’ll know that the consistent finishes with Project Northstar have kept me in the top 4 for the season. While this is a huge bonus the goal of using the 2015 WRX was never really to win but just to test out the new platform, find it’s weaknesses and improve upon the car methodically. It was a pretty big surprise to everyone at how well the car has performed all season with the only issue being a trans bearing going but since 2 other Subarus had similar issues I can’t really blame the car. I cannot get over how good the 2015+ WRX is at the track with minimal modifications, something that anyone could do as we’re not using ultra exotic race components.
I’m not sure really where to start but I guess I’ll get into the details that most people want which is the brakes! The first opportunity to use the new StopTech Front Big Brake kit was at Shannonville for Round 4. While I did notice an improvement in braking I had no references for this track and the layout we used only had 2 braking zones so the brakes never really got worked hard in my opinion. The season finale was at Toronto Motorsports Park which i’m very familiar with and as many others do this is somewhat of the bench mark for local track cars. TMP also has a bunch of heavy braking zones so it would put the brakes through their paces much better. The first session out it was very apparent that the new brakes were a huge step forward from the factory front calipers/rotors with Hawk HPS 5.0 pads. Even with the StopTech Street pads which from my experience are not as good as the HPS 5.0 my braking points were all over the place. Pretty much every braking marker that I had been using was now irrelevant. I also struggled at first to get used to the consistency and performance as with the stock brakes I felt like I was at the limit every time I was braking and had to stay on the pedal. With the new bigger front brakes I could now brake hard and then begin to reduce pressure as I got closer to the turn in point and trail brake a little into the corners. So the first session was an eye opener big time!
The next two sessions I was able to start to adjust to the new brakes and work my way to later braking markers. For those familiar with TMP they will know that on the start/finish straight going into turn 1 there are white marks on the left side of the track (turn 1 is a right hander). I don’t know exactly how far they are set apart but I was able to move my braking marker 1 full white mark further and then even a little more. I believe these are likely 25 feet apart but I can’t say for certain. I could consistently lap after lap use this further marker without any brake fade or “pucker” moments. This in turn allowed me to stay on the gas longer picking up a few KM/H speed as well. All positives up to this point but unfortunately I was unable to go any faster in these first 3 sessions as I was only getting about 3/4 of a lap before hitting slower traffic. I was able to get myself moved into the fastest group which was when I finally was able to do some good laps without traffic while trying to get out of the way of some of the really fast cars going 7-8 seconds a lap faster in super street and unlimited classes. With the new brakes I was able to qualify for the final session in 5th place with a 1:22.7 which was .2 seconds faster then my previous best time. This is a lot less then I expected but I knew with more seat time there was more time to be made up and all of my qualifying sessions were with a passenger.
The only downside that I found with the bigger brakes was that the brake balance was changed a lot. This is only really noticeable on track and when really pushing hard. The front bias was causing the rear to become very light and it would begin to rotate while on the brakes. It wasn’t out of control or anything but moving forward I would like to get the bias better balanced. The simple method for this would be to swap in a set of more aggressive rear pads but the plan is to get the ST-20 rear kit on the car and that should help reduce the front bias. Other then that the brakes were awesome and never let me down. There’s something to be said for having extreme confidence in your brakes while on track.
Back to the time attack, I was to head out 5th and wanted to just drive smooth and focus on getting on the power earlier. I set a large gap with the guy in front and did my warm up lap. First lap felt good but I knew there was more in it so I pushed harder into every braking zone and getting on the power harder and faster. The tires were also just starting to warm up at this point. At the start of the second lap I noticed that the R33 GT-R in front of me was nowhere to be seen. I believe he ended up having a boost tube pop off and was unable to finish. Coming into turn 6 I could see the 2nd place qualifier driving very slowly along the track. I came upon him pretty close to the final section of the track and unfortunately was held up which ended up hurting the final part of my second lap and the beginning of my third hot lap. It was definitely disappointing but that’s just part of racing. I luckily ended up putting in a solid first lap and came away in 3rd place for the 3rd time this season. I’m definitely pleased to have been this consistent over the season with this car and it was a pleasure to race with everyone who came out. In the time attack session my third place time was a 1:22.44 which means I dropped half a second off my personal best with tires that had seen 4+ track events. On the second lap that got held up I was down another .4 seconds so I’m curious to get back out and see what we can do with no hold ups. I’m pleased to see that all 3 flying lap times were within less then 1% of each other I just need to string together those perfect laps. I’m confident even with the StopTech Street pads I should be able to get down into the 1:21’s and maybe even further with new tires and track pads.
With all that said and done I was able to finish the season tied for 2nd place in the championship which is pretty good for a full weight & fairly stock 2015 WRX. I’m going to set a goal for the car of 1:20.9 at TMP with as minimal mods as possible. Right now the plan is rear brakes, upgraded rear swaybar and some new Hankook RS-3 Tires.
Thanks to these companies that are helping with this Project
COBB Tuning – COBB AccessPORT and COBB Cat-Back
Mad Graphics – Full Vehicle Vinyl Wrap and Side Graphics
Grimmspeed – License Plate Relocation Kit
Turn In Concepts – Shifter Bearing and TGV Deletes
Killer B Motorsports – J-Pipe
OnPoint Dyno – Dyno Tuning and Testing
Uni-Body Collision – Paint Work (Emblems, Lip, Trunk Spoiler)
StopTech – Front Big Brake Kit
