rporter

We have about 2" on the ground since 3:00 PM, and they're talkin' 3-6" by tonight!! Boy, am I glad it's Spring!! Better clear up the roads by Saturday. I have to drive to Frankfort IL to pick up my new Garage Queen and I'm using an open trailer.

Well, yo know that they were all sold. Either way, not enough to justify the combo for a small mfr. FWIW, the dealership had an ABP Ltd 5MT wagon with a tan interior that I test-drove. They had it for at least 6 months after I ordered and bought mine. I personally don't care for the tan interior, but it was obviously a dealer-order car that they guessed wrong.

Yep. When I see that I'm 1 of 86 RBP GT Ltd wagons with the 5MT, it explains why they dropped the black interior and MT in subsequent years,

It's a matter of personal opinion that "true" snows are not directional. The key advantage of any directional tire....summer, a/s, or whatever.....is that they are beter at evacuating water on wet surfaces. A definite plus in many conditions. From what I've found, the biggest probem with the LGT is a lack of ground clearance. And this was BEFORE I put on the Ksport coilovers.

Probably not MI, as those blue plates were all expired by 12/31/2007, unless he's hiding in IL with dead plates!!

Obviously posing the question to one of the Cobb guys will clear it up. BUT, if you look at the device (V1 in my case) when you are loading maps, you could clear ALL of the maps off of the unit, then load whatever you want. From what I see, if you unmarry the unit from a vehicle, delete then reload with maps for another vehicle (let's say from an '05 MTX to an '06 ATX) then you could marry it to a new vehicle and load it.

There's a hole in the bottom near the rear for the trailer wiring loom. If you don't have a trailer hitch, you could use that. Otherwise it would be very easy to drill another hole.

Based on the wear from Grattan, after this Fall's Gingerman day, and the two track days next year in May and July (tracks TBD), I'm sure that they will be shot. They will probably only have maybe 5K of street miles in that time, as I'm mostly down in KY/WV with my work truck. Fine with me. When you do tracks, tires are a consumable like brake pads. i would rather have good tires than crappy ones that last longer.

I love 'em!! I have found my new summer tire for track & street. Slight bit of tire noise, but of no concern to me (can't hear them with the stereo on). I did a bit of street/highway driving in the wet, and they seemed fine. I also changed wheels (long story), goug ack to a 17x7 from a 17x7.5, but the steering response feels close to the former 17x7.5 wheels, which is an improvement IMHO. Big thing was that they performed very well at the track last week. Now, I had changed my suspension setup since my last track day in May. I now run -1.4 camber in the front, -1.0 in the rear with the Ksport coilovers (I had already installed Cobb sways previously), but nonetheless the tires were wonderful, especially when they hung in there when they got hot. I will definitely buy these again, and $107 for 215/45/17s can't be beat.

I made a few changes from my last outing at Gingerman in May, but since then I added the Ksport coilovers which let me go to -1.4 camber in the front, -1.0 in the rear, with zero toe all around. I previously added Cobb sways, and ran with new Hankook RS2 Z212s. I ran with this combo at Grattan last week. The whole combo worked very well. Running more negative camber up front over stock settings felt great, and the tires didn't get as shredded up in the afternoon sessions (when the track gets hot) as they had in the past with the stock alignment settings. I have run -1.5 camber in the past on other cars with no issues if you keep the tires rotated. This was my fourth track day on the Carbotech Panther Plus (now called AX6) pads, plus about 15K of street use, and I love them. They are ready for replacement, but I had a spare set at Grattan as I didn't expect them to live through another track day. The Hankook RS2s are my new favorite summer tire for the track & street. BTW, if you ever get the chance to do Grattan (north of Grand Rapids MI) do it. Fun track.

1. Hankook RS2 Z212, 215/45/17, $107 each at Discount Tire online, definitely a Summer tire (street version of the Z211 track tire). About 1,000 miles plus one track day. 2. Detroit MI area 3. Grattan track day 4. 50-50 city-highway 5. Dunlop Direzza DZ101 6. The DZ101s were junk for track use as I stated in a previous post (got too greasy after 4-5 laps). I replaced them after only 6,000 miles with these Hankooks. These are the best street tires that I have ever used for the track. I will definitely stay with these when they wear out.

All the APs are (V1 or V2) a hardware device that supports any maps. He most certainly can get the V1 wth the '05 maps, download the '06 maps, blow away the '05 maps on the AP, then load '06. No magic involved.

#1) Dunlop Direzza DZ101, 215/45/17 on Rota SDR 17x7.5", $85/each from Tire Rack. Installed with a Road Hazard warranty was $413. Currently have about 5K miles on them (they are summer-only tires). #2) Detroit MI area #3) The tires have one track day (not counting the "snow day" at Gingerman last October), plus daily 3-season driving #4) 60% highway, 40% city #5) Previous tires were the Michelin Pilot Exalto PE2s (see post #38: http://legacygt.com/forums/showpost.php?p=850090&postcount=38 ) #6) These tires have a stiffer sidewall than the Pilot Exalto PE2s, which was encouraging. After buying them (I decided to be a pioneer, since no one I knew had tried them), I saw the Tire Rack test, which placed them third out of three tires tested. They work fine on the street in the wet or dry. For typical street/highway use, they should be fine. BUT.....these tires are absolutey wretched for track use!! They are the worst tires that I have ever had for a track event, and that includes some a/s tires I have run in the past. They are "OK" for about half a 20-minute session (4-5 laps), then they become extremely greasy as they heat up. I have another track event in July, when it's hotter, and I will NOT use these tires. This will be the first time that I have ever shytecanned a set of tires with only 5K miles, but they will be totally useless in the July heat at Grattan. I have yet to decide on their replacements.

Any recall is a deviation from the SOP of any company. I would almost be more suspicious of a mfr that handles recalls too perfectly....it tells me that they have too much experience performing them!!

#1) Hankook Icebear W300 225/45/17 winter tires, bought used with 8-9/32s versus 11.5/32s new, 5,000 miles last winter on the stock rims. #2) Detroit MI area #3) Noraml commuting driving, obviously no track events. #4) 60% highway, 40% city #5) RE92s were the previous tire #6) I was very pleased with them. They worked better in icy conditions than I expected, as well as very well in slush. We don't have a lot of heavy snow on the roads, but they seemed fine in the little bit of heavier snow I drove in (ground clearance was the bigger issue). These will be a definite consideration come replacement time.

#1) Michelin Pilot Exalto PE2, 215/45/17 on Rota SDR 17x7.5", Super deal @ $400/set, 21K miles then replaced #2) Detroit MI area #3) The tires had four track days, plus daily 3-season driving #4) 60% highway, 40% city #5) previous tires were the RE92s #6) These tires were excellent, and worked very well on the track. They worked very well on the street in both the dry & wet. Highly recommended. I did not get another set as I feel that $160/tire is a bit pricey when there are comparable tires for less money out there.

From my experience reflashing base maps......yes. It needs to relearn through the adaptive cycle. Now, I don't know on realtime maps, as I've only done a realtime map change once, and it was in the middle of a long road trip to drop to a lower octane map. From that point, the car went right back on cruise control, so I didn't notice anything.

Depends what you're going in for. For engine/electronics stuff, reflash it back. For other stuff, don't bother.

Well...not exactly. Replacing the DP with a better catted or catless pipe qualifies. Actually, the best advice is for folks to read all of Cobb's explanation in the FAQ: http://cobbtuning.com/legacy/accessport-faq.html under the "What is needed for Stage 2?" question.

That is a tough question. First off, the "name brands" are supposed to be made with their own additive package, so theoretically, Chevron would be the same at every station. In reaity it may not be. As I understand from folks I know who distribute gas, the local distribution point is responsible for the additive package that makes Chevron or Shell or whatever from the gas from a refinery. Then the distributor takes over. Assuming everybody does their job to get the right gas to a station's storage tanks (which can be iffy), then there is the issue of the quality from a local station. Do they sell enough, or has the 91 octane been in the tank since Christmas?? I have friends that claim they can tell differences in gas, but they are non-performance-car folks with n/a engines. I tend to stay with the name brands (BP, Mobil, Shell), and don't notice anything different. For a semi-related story the seven-county area around Detroit must have Summer gas (basically RFG swill) from June through mid-September. The county 10 miles north of me (Lapeer county) is out of the area, so theoreticaly, they don't have to sell the Summer gas. Well. my Peterbilt salesman buddy sells trucks to the guy whose compay distributes about all of the gas in SE Michigan, and his area includes part of Lapeer county. I haven't gotten an answer yet, but I am virtually certain that he delivers RFG outside of the mandated area (which is fine with the EPA), as why would he set up special delveries of non-RFG-Summer gas to a basically rural county without many stations?

I have run 92 on many occasions (northern MI stations in the boondocks), and infrequently 91, on my 93 map. I don't data-log, and my butt-dyno is not THAT finely tuned, but I haven't noticed a difference. Of course, the 91 & 92 was usuallly mixed wth 93. Bottom line is also that you never reallly know what octane you are truly getting. A guy on another list has a friend who does station inspections for the State of Michigan, and there is more funny stuff going on than you would suspect. I surmise that it's the main reason that every car built since at least the late '80s will run without damage on 87......although not with all of the advertised power.

I mentioned that I noticed a difference, but it was also hotter getting into Arizona last June. I would hesitate to call it a "huge" difference, but it was noticeable. OTOH, it was cooler in Texas by the time I switched maps back to 93, and I felt better throttle response. Ain't worth messing with getting gas in. Spend the $$$ for Stage 2 with the swill that they call 91 octane in CA. Also, don't mess with octane boosters, Long story, but they are expensive, and blending is hit-or-miss. Folks have better luck just buying bulk Toluene. I would suspect that, even in the People's Republic of California, there are stations that sell 100 octane unleaded fuel. We have them here (conveniently, one is on the way to our usual dragstrip), but it's now up to $6/gallon, rather than the $5/gallon it had been for years. IMHO, success at track days has less to do with power than (1) driving ability and (2) suspension/brakes. If you want better track performance, spend the $$$ on a driving school.

I see that you are in NY. If 93 octane is readily available, I would suggest going with the 93 octane map (and gas), rather than the 91. While driving to/from Phoenix last year, I switched to the 91 Octane Stage 1 map after I got west of Amarillo, as 93 octane gas vanished. Now, I won't discount the fact that the "butt dyno" may have been playing tricks on me, but the car did not feel as responsive the whole two weeks that I ran the 91 map. On the way home, once I got to east Texas, I flashed back to the 93 map, and all seemed back to normal once I put on a few miles to reacclimate it.

Correct. the base map stays in place, and the realtime map is lost. With adaptive learning, in my experience it then takes another 100 miles or so of varied driving to get the car feeling it's best.

When you do a Base Map load, it also loads the corresponding realtime map.