“After a successful first outing at Mid-Ohio, I knew my S2000 was relatively dialed in. Despite having just 210 whp, it shined through the corners, making up chunks of time against the much more powerful competition when it came to the twisties. However, I wasn’t satisfied. One was consistency, and two was control. Even before Mid-Ohio, my times were not very consistent. Errors in my driving were often amplified, and there might only be one or two good flying laps and plenty that I had to abort. Moreover, despite my prior experiences of racing at Mid-Ohio, trying to stay on the asphalt with my S when the rain started to fall was difficult to say the least. Squirming under braking, I didn’t have a lot of confidence to really attack or charge the entry, and on the exit, attempting to put down any power, even out of the VTEC window, had to be done with delicacy and care. I might’ve won the event, but I knew there was more left in the car. After talking with TF-Works about some potential solutions, we decided on an ATS Carbon 1.5 way LSD. The stock Torsen has done its job, but it’s time for an upgrade.
After a stress-free install, my first impression as I pulled out of TF was… did they put my stock diff back in? I had heard plenty about the annoyance of the constant chattering from aftermarket differentials, but all I could hear as I struggled through typical Chicagoland traffic was my own rattling exhaust. In other words, it was business as usual on the street.
The following weekend, we headed out to Gingerman Raceway for Gridlife Midwest. Here, I got my first taste of the ATS Carbon’s magic at work. Taking corners at speeds that would’ve upset the rear before, the car now stayed stable, and continued to hold on to the line that I had intended. If I wanted rotation on entry, the car would still give it to me, but now I had more control of the slip angle. Instead of 70% throttle trying to recover the rear from excessive angle, I could now go on 100% throttle and just hang on as the car sorts itself out and accelerate earlier. The data from my AIM solo showed about 0.05-0.1 second difference every corner, compared to when I was there a couple weeks prior without the diff. The PB dropped, too, from a 1:41.7 to a 1:40.054, a new 200tw NA S2000 record around Gingerman.
And on Sunday morning, the rain came and soaked the track, and I was eager to see just how big of a difference the ATS carbon would make, under these tricky and low grip situations. With the same suspension and tire set up as Mid-Ohio, the car immediately felt more stable and easy to drive. I could attack the braking zone if I really wanted to, but I preferred to carry the momentum through with smooth inputs, and I was shocked as to how easy the car had become to tame. The throttle pedal was no longer a knife’s edge, and I could actually use most of that 210 horses on corner exits.
Even when I had dropped the ball and caught in a full-oppo-lock slide at 70 mph going through 7-8-9, I knew exactly when to pick up the throttle, drop the clutch, straighten the wheel and continue onwards. A full 20-minute session with the wipers on full speed and barely any visibility, I didn’t have a single off-track excursion (for me, someone with the nickname of “Bumper Destroyer”, that is a real achievement). The amount of confidence it generated was simply unreal, and, much to my surprise, I had set the fastest time of all 4 classes in the wet sessions, about a second faster than a Corvette C7 with all its “rain mode” TC and stability controls.
Make no mistake, this ATS Carbon was a serious financial investment that I had to think more than twice about before pulling the trigger. But, as someone who had genuinely struggled and hated driving in the rain before, this simple bolt-in part made me change my whole attitude towards it. In fact, if it happens to rain all weekend long at Road Atlanta for Gridlife South, I think I might have more than a chance of pulling out a win. Not saying you MUST have an ATS Carbon diff, I’m just saying you should… ”
This weekend we took our 2005 Acura RSX-S for some shakedown testing at my home track of Gingerman Raceway. This car has been a front runner for the Street Mod FWD class for the current 2018 GridLife Track Battle Season. We have always used Hawk Pads and have dabbled in different brands in the past and have always found confidence and consistency in the tried and true DTC-60’s. For our test session we went out with DTC-60’s in the front with HP+’s in the rear. The brakes had about 80% life left. After a few sessions of dialing in the car for the current track conditions we changed out to Winmax W6 in the front with fresh rotors. From there we were able to complete testing in the same conditions and gather comparable data.
My driving method on the DTC-60’s has been to just hit the brakes hard within my target braking zone, change up a little according to tire and brake heat as the session goes on and try to get on throttle ASAP. There are areas where I thought I was maximizing my entry speeds all while settling up for the corner using brake modulation. As it turns out the modulation with the DTC-60 wasn’t as fine as I thought it was. The Winmax W6 pads allowed me to scrub off enough speed
while being able to smoothly modulate the pedal as to keep the front of the car loaded. This allowed for much deeper braking and very consistent laps. The modulation stayed the same even after being heated up. The data showed a speed increase between turns 1 and 2 at Gingerman to be about 3-5 MPH up and on a couple runs I saw as much as 6-8 MPH more when the conditions were ideal and I was able to get more aggressive. The other major differences were in turns 3, 5, and 6 where the modulation allowed me to carry a lot more speed with confidence. The data shows about a 3-5 MPH increase in turn 3 and around 4-6 MPH
increase in turns 5 and 6. Some of the extra speed was found from having the extra confidence that the front end of the car was settled well before turn in. My brakes no longer felt like an on/off switch. The W6 does share nearly the same initial bite as the DTC-60’s but with a much higher ability to control the amount of front load up before turning in. As for fade, the W6 pads were similar to the DTC-60 in the sense that they never faded away even after 16 minutes on track. When it comes to dusting, the W6’s definitely dusted much more than the DTC-60’s. A small price to pay for some major performance gains.
Best lap on DTC-60 – 1:39.8
Best lap on W6 – 1:38.8
This past weekend marked an important point in the drifting culture in America as the third Final Bout event took place in Shawano, Wisconsin. The Final Bout events have always been about the more stylish side of drifting which is shown in both style of the cars as well as driving style. During the driver’s meeting on Saturday morning, it was announced that this would be the last Final Bout event. We have had the pleasure to support the Final Bout series since its conception in 2014, and are thankful to have met many of you guys (and gals) through this great event! As bummed as we are about the end of the Final Bout legacy, it didn’t hold us back from enjoying the 2 day event and snapping a TON of photos (literally, what are we going to do with all of these?)! Saturday morning was greeted with a nice cloud coverage which soon turned into a torrential downpour before the competition was scheduled to start. Once it started drying up, competition started and after the winners were announced there was a short dinner break and then the night drifting ensued until 11PM! Sunday was a more relaxed vibe, with the stress of competition over with and the weather more favorable, everyone was on track getting up close and personal with follow drivers from all across the continent. I’ll get right to the photos, a handful of them are pulled out for just a teaser but the link to the full album on Flickr is at the end of the post!
The full album with over 500 photos can be found on our TF Flickr:
