OnGrid Trackday - ORP
"If you build it they will come"
Oregon Raceway Park in my opinion is one of the best tracks in the country and one of the best kept secrets in Oregon. It really is the field of dreams for road race course (see image below)
Track Prep:
Before heading out to the desert there are a couple of things I wanted to do. The first was making room for any and all tools/spare parts and the second was getting fuel. ORP has fuel onsite but it is much more expensive than pump and I like to mix higher octane fuel in just to insure safe combustion under strenuous conditions with much more heat.
One of the quickest ways to drop weight in the MK7 GTI is by pulling the rear seats. Surprisingly there are two bolts you need to remove to actually pull all of it out. I hopped on YouTube for a quick tutorial on how to pull the seats. Hardway Learning has a useful video. Surprisingly with seats and spare tire/tools removed its almost 150lbs in weight savings.
Plus once removed you can fit so much more kit in the back. I was able to fit an extra set of wheels/tires, tool box, impact guns, track day box with jack, jack stands, two 5 gallon cans, chair, tent and much more.
Fuel
When it comes to fuel and track days I generally like to play it safe especially when I know it's going to be hot. There is a VP station near me where I went to mix up some higher octane fuel. Being a stock car I did not want to run anything leaded with all of the sensors and catalytic converter so I ran a mixture of 1 part 98 (unleaded) octane and 4 parts 92 (pump) octane. I figured this would bump the average mix to about 93/94 octane and help keep detonation/knock away.
With all this prep it was time to hit the track. The MQB chassis continues to exceed all my expectations I had for it. With suspensions tuning and OBD 11 tweaks the MK7 GTI is so capable. All in all I managed a 2:04.6 around ORP which felt great. I think there is more time in there somewhere but will just have to continue to search for it.
Also FWD stands for "Fun Wheel Drive" right?
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All in all the car was great and I feel like as far as track day settings go it is dialed in terms of freedom and actual driver control (aka no ESC, brake over stabilization, XDS intervention, aggressive diff lock, etc.) I think the things this car could really benefit from are the following:
Oil Cooler - oil temps were getting hot (max 257 degrees) by the end of the day and I just managed them by taking a cool down lap
Brake Pads - replacing the HP+'s with Carbotech XP 12/10's I think would benefit it greatly especially in the confidence department
Tuning - looking at bumping the power with an ECU tune (roughly 20% more) and having a faster DSG shift time with a TCU tune. One note on this is I do not plan to change out the downpipe or the intake. If anything I will just do a drop in filter
