Z8 (E52) Articles

By: Stuart Edwards

[Ed: Stuart is an S52 M coupe owner as well as a 350Z owner. Following are his impressions shared with a 350Z forum after participating in a high-speed driving event.]

Had the first track event here in Texas at Texas World Speedway last weekend. Wasn't planning on taking the Z but the M coupe was still having suspension work done. Just finished the horrible break-in of no more than 4000 rpms which seemed to last forever. It took me almost 1.5 months to get the miles on it, had the oil changed for the synthetic and headed to TWS.

First track session, I was bummed. It was an understeering pig! This was the first time in a long while to be on a track with street tires and the RE040s are not a very good performer in that environment. I would have loved to have been able to slap on a set of Kumhos and seen the difference in handling. It would have been huge. Anyway, my first impression was that it would just plow through several corners at TWS. The carousel is a tight, sweeping right hand, throwaway corner before a sharp left transition to a fairly long straight. You enter the corner under heavy braking from a downhill bumpy straight, braking from about 90 to 45 miles per hour. I could not get the back end to rotate by lifting throttle. Finally just had to slow way down. I was getting left behind by S2000s on track tires and all the others in my run group (advanced group, just below the instructors).

Started adjusting tire pressures based upon temps and wear on sidewalls. Lowered rear pressure to about 33 cold and fronts at about 35 cold. (it is interesting to watch the tire pressures rise during the run session from 33 to 42 by session end on the tire monitoring system).