The Red Drift ///Machine - 2026 NASA TT4 adventures

[bigjae46]

Carbon hood #2. My supplier shipped me different epoxy which is turning out to be mildly disastrous.

My hood did not fully infuse so I am having to do a bunch of post work which is in progress and not looming forward to.





Also got my ass kicked making a dash with this f’ing epoxy! Yeah, this one ain’t gonna work 🤣!



Made some adjustments and the next one was better.

[bigjae46]

I installed a ground control front sway bar. I know some mentioned it interfered with the splitter. It barely clears mine.

OEM bar w/bushings, housings, and bimmerworld endlinks - 15.6 lbs

GC bar - 12.6lbs.

3lbs of weight loss!

[bigjae46]

Carbon fiber racing seat floor mounts! The backside didn’t go as planned but they turned out great otherwise! 2.25lbs for the outer and inner. 90% Carbon and 10% kevlar. These will be a mutha f’er to drill. Have to figure that out. Might have to outsource that.

[bigjae46]

How come you ended up going with a OEM slicktop vs doing a CF panel?

Would love to PM you about an inquiry for a E91 CF roof, but I’m on ICE for 30 days so I’ll participate responsibly. 👀

I installed a CF roof panel. Forgot to post it.

[Igor_M5]

How come you ended up going with a OEM slicktop vs doing a CF panel?

Would love to PM you about an inquiry for a E91 CF roof, but I’m on ICE for 30 days so I’ll participate responsibly. 👀

[Slideways]

Finding out the E46 poses a lot of challenges with splitter tunnels. The tunnels go right where the most common mounting location is under the frame rail. Then I lose a lot of area under the engine.

I can make a bracket to go over the tunnel for mounting. I will develop a brake cooling deflector plate to work with the tunnels. Last piece of under car aero is making a flat bottom thrust plate.

Doing my first cast molds. If this works, it will enable me to make small carbon parts relatively fast. I can make the mold in a couple of hours and then cast a carbon part in a out an hour or two. No hunting down vacuum leaks, and closely watching infusions although it is oddly exciting.

Floor mount adaptors and Heinzenboehmer’s strut brace mount.

For the smaller parts, would it be possible to create a 3D printed mold?

[Lavatoad]

Falken RT660 review

These are great budget tires that I think are faster than Toyo RRs. 275/40R17 set me back $1026 plus tax.

First, definitely takes an extra lap to get them to temp. My hot target for RRs is 30psi which puts me at about 22-23psi cold. I bumped these up to 24psi which got me to about 31psi. I will try higher pressures to see at what point it gets worse. I think I'll settle around 32psi.

First, they are the opposite of the RRs - stronger front end with a weaker rear. Once they were up to temp, the front end had more bite and feel especially under braking. Braking is the RR's biggest weakness. The rear end felt vague with the Falkens. It was more difficult to throttle steer. Maybe slightly higher pressures in the rear could help with this. I'm guessing there is a difference in sidewall stiffness.

I have 12 heat cycles on them so far and the wear looks minimal.

So far these are relatively faster 200 treadwear tires for a budget and seem to last. Looking like a great DE tire.

Good write up. Looking for a new tire to try on the cayman.

[bigjae46]

Finding out the E46 poses a lot of challenges with splitter tunnels. The tunnels go right where the most common mounting location is under the frame rail. Then I lose a lot of area under the engine.

I can make a bracket to go over the tunnel for mounting. I will develop a brake cooling deflector plate to work with the tunnels. Last piece of under car aero is making a flat bottom thrust plate.

Doing my first cast molds. If this works, it will enable me to make small carbon parts relatively fast. I can make the mold in a couple of hours and then cast a carbon part in a out an hour or two. No hunting down vacuum leaks, and closely watching infusions although it is oddly exciting.

Floor mount adaptors and Heinzenboehmer’s strut brace mount.

[bigjae46]

Bought an AiM ACC2 to get brake pressure data.



I am using this guide to tap into the existing brake pressure sensor wiring

MK60 Brake Pressure Sensor Data – GSR Motorsports

I had to pull out the ECU and box to get to the wire. You have to dig down in there because the sensor wires head down towards the ABS unit, not towards the ECU. Tapped into the black/violet wire.



The I bought a 4m 719 patch cable from Pegasus. The blue wire was pin 1. Not sure if this is the same for all of the Pegasus' patch cables. Routed it to the center console area through the firewall. Would have been fine with 3m.



Bad news...I have an old AiM Solo DL. A new sensor has to be programmed in Race Studio 3 so I need an Aim Solo 2 DL. I am debating on whether to go with an AiM dash or a Solo 2 DL. More of a reminder for me, the AiM dash was attractive because it would allow the addition of the brake pressure data. I can do that with the Solo 2 DL...so I should go that route.

I've made a commitment to keep my hobbies revenue neutral. I have to make money to spend money on my hobbies - cars and ice hockey. So the Solo 2 DL will have to wait until the summer. Just bought tires and lots of carbon fiber stuff.

Tried to get some aero data from around the wheels. Didn't work out because my hood is too flimsy. I could have tried to mount the gopro on the windshield. It was last minute and I was too lazy. Maybe next time.

[bigjae46]

It has been a race against the weather. Need to get the dash mold done before it gets into the 90s. Fiberglass work is really not possible...or at least quality work is not possible. Got it done, came out great! Only 2 minor repair areas and the OE dash did release from the mold.

Prepping the dash to pull a mold from took awhile. I finished this back in Feb but got sidetracked.


I had to do a split mold. The mold is two parts that line up to make one part. This aids in getting parts out of the mold.



Still have a little clean up and some repairs to do but it came out really good!



The dash was delayed due to making a new hood mold. 3rd time is a charm...first part came out great!



Lesson learned, really need a partial underside to keep the hood from flapping around. About to bond and then final trim.

[bigjae46]

Making some carbon splitter tunnels.

The infusion



Straight off the molds



Trimmed and ready! Didn't bother with the polish on this one.

[bigjae46]

Blake is very fast, tough competition for sure. Don't sell yourself short either, you forgot to mention that to beat him you would have also had to set a TT3 lap record. And is he still running 315s? I thought I saw him mention trying to fit 335s?

Not sure what size, he mentioned he was running Hankook slicks. Yeah, Blake is an example of a great driver with a well setup car. I beat him last year at MSRH but I don't think he really came fully prepared. I did walk away learning a lot more this year than last year.

[George Hill]

Blake is very fast, tough competition for sure. Don't sell yourself short either, you forgot to mention that to beat him you would have also had to set a TT3 lap record. And is he still running 315s? I thought I saw him mention trying to fit 335s?

[bigjae46]

Falken RT660 review

These are great budget tires that I think are faster than Toyo RRs. 275/40R17 set me back $1026 plus tax.

First, definitely takes an extra lap to get them to temp. My hot target for RRs is 30psi which puts me at about 22-23psi cold. I bumped these up to 24psi which got me to about 31psi. I will try higher pressures to see at what point it gets worse. I think I'll settle around 32psi.

First, they are the opposite of the RRs - stronger front end with a weaker rear. Once they were up to temp, the front end had more bite and feel especially under braking. Braking is the RR's biggest weakness. The rear end felt vague with the Falkens. It was more difficult to throttle steer. Maybe slightly higher pressures in the rear could help with this. I'm guessing there is a difference in sidewall stiffness.

I have 12 heat cycles on them so far and the wear looks minimal.

So far these are relatively faster 200 treadwear tires for a budget and seem to last. Looking like a great DE tire.

[bigjae46]

Onto NASA Houston Spring Fling! Only my 2nd event and a lot of learning.

TT4 only had 1 entrant so I ended up running TT3. Not really ready for TT3 but these Falken RT660s will carry me to victory! I am going against a fast driver in a fast car (E92 M3) - I'm pretty sure I was his last instructor 6 years ago. I know for a fact he's a fast driver so it should be a good challenge.

I had to be at my best to have a chance and I wasn't. When I analyze data, I usually want to see a couple of things:

- 2 best sectors in the best lap
- a best rolling lap which includes 2 or more best sectors in a lap
- sectors should generally be within .1-.3 seconds of each other

If I meet those 3 criteria, I'm driving well and consistently. And this data is useful to figure out where I can find lap time.

Despite my weight being optimized within 10lbs of my min weight...I never got there. Got smoked by 3 seconds.

- Falken RT660s won't cut it in TT3...not even close. At least for this platform.
- Ballast can be used to tune the handling. It might be possible to improve or even optimize L-F and F-R balance with careful ballast placement. The biggest limitation is mounting location.
- Excuse here...the TC Klines are about dead. I think the right front strut didn't like going off and catching air back in Jan. The splitter scrapes a more often on left handers and it feels bouncy.

I could have been about 1-1.5 seconds closer but I don't think I could have beaten him. I did outrun a C7 vette and a CTS-V on slicks.