Nissan 350Z Racecar Update

Brembo brake caliper from the 350Z, ready to rebuild. 

Recently the NMS 350Z (the real race car one, not the one that was just sold, or the other one in the driveway at NMS-South, let's keep this organized!) headed up to Virginia International Raceway for Gridlife. Following a lot of work to prepare for going on track, things were going GREAT! I mean REALLY GREAT...right up to the point of finding some problems and having things not going so great! We have to report that there was a problem with an oil temperature sensor that resulted in a leak that made the car undriveable. While that was unfortunate, Brian was still able to hang out and see a lot of cool drifting, cars, and get on track as an instructor with several students. 

(The photos today will show some later work we started on rebuilding the Brembo brakes, so that's kind of a 2nd blog post inside the written blog post. Hey, you're getting 2 for 1 today! At the same price!)

As you might guess, these brakes are what master mechanics call "used."

His students included a first time track driver in a Honda Civic R, and a 13 year old driver in a Miata! If anyone is worried about the future of motorsports, I'd say this is a great example of new people coming into the sport, even if it's just for 20 minutes on a real track with an instructor. This also answers the question, "Do I need a driver's license to drive on a closed race track?" Even for Max Verstappen in Formula 1, the answer was "no" since he was racing at that level before he got is official road license in the Netherlands. 

Here's the two front brake calipers, also "used." These are much larger, and each has two pistons. 

Brian reports that VIR remains an awesome track, and believe it or not I recently read something from Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear, Clarkson's Farm, The Grand Tour, etc) that listed VIR as one of his favorite tracks. That's not bad coming from a guy that's probably driven just about every kind of car on just about every kind of road and track on the planet. 

The two pins hold the pads in place, and each pin has its own cotter pin. 

Anyway... on a related note...  in other news... and now for something completely different... as scientists say...

Just to really get into this brake job of replacing the seals, we even took apart each caliper. 
Here's one half, you can see the round plastic housing where the pistons live. 

Over in Alabama they've got a track called Barber Motorsports Park, and NMS will be there in July for some track driving. NMS-South lists it as a great place to visit and drive, and since NMS-North has never been there, LET'S GO! You can read all about it at their homepage: BARBER MOTORSPORTS PARK AND MUSEUM

Here are the pistons from the rear brakes. We removed the outer and inner seals on these, and then have to put the new ones on. Once you're taken it apart this far, the seals are easy.  

Besides the track, Barber is the home to maybe the largest motorcycle museum in the country, so we're booking a little extra time there to check out the museum too. Oh, and the Indy Car drivers race there too, so it's a nice track. The Guinness Book of World Records lists their museum as THE LARGEST MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM IN THE WORLD! Shoot, I bet it's the biggest one in the SOLAR SYSTEM TOO! That tiny motorcycle museum on Mars is not worth the visit!

This piston has a new seal on. We learned that the front and rear calipers used three different sizes of inner seals on this set of Brembo brakes. Don't be confused; Brembo is the automotive brake company, and Bimbo is the snack food company!