It’s been a while for me, so I thought a post was in order. I have been successfully tracking my 2015 Abarth for a couple of summers now and it’s still a total blast. I am about to head to Oregon Raceway Park tomorrow morning and realized my very first track day with this scrappy monster was also at ORP. So, I thought I might post about my general experiences… successes and challenges.
The setup:
The cooling system is stock and keeps up just fine.
For brakes, I run plain rotors (not slotted or dimpled) and g-loc R8 pads all the way around. I have 5 tracks days on them and I think I will get another 5. I have fancy pants motul fluid and the brakes have never faded. My calipers are no longer red, however, the heat has ruined the paint.
I have a EC stage 2 tune with all the support bits required for that plus a Forge oil cooler.
I have 7pt belts for the driver and a harness bar with a stock seat.
For suspension I have cut my coils (very mild drop) and installed adjustable Koni shocks all around. I also have the thicker rear sway bar in the back. I have Corsa front subframe braces and top hats for the front struts. I have as much camber and I can get with two mods: 1. Camber bolts and 2. Eccentric lower control arm bushings. This gives me -2.5deg up front and I am finally getting good tire wear, but more on that later. I run stock toe and caster. The rears are run stock.
Successes: the car is rock solid. I’ve never seen the temp gauge go up at all, even after 30mins of track time. The brakes are solid. The motor takes 20+psi of boost all day long. The car makes everyone smile, including me. My suspension setup feels very stable. I get slight lift-off over steer at medium to high speeds and reasonable understeer at low speeds. The car feels fast and safe and predictable. I would recommend this setup for anyone with track experience. For beginners, I would do the same except I would stick with the stock rear sway bar.
Challenges: the biggest challenge I have has so far has been tire wear. I suspect my poor driving style contributes, but I have been struggling to keep tires from getting torn up. I ran advan AO52s in 205/50R15 with 10mm spacers all the way around. These tires would blister the outer shoulder after two track days. I would not recommend these tires for these cars. Now I run Kuhmo V730s in the same size and the wear is way better. I have an entire summer on them and they seem to have plenty of life. The Kuhmos are also not direction specific, so I can swap them from side to side. This is very important to me for extending tire life.
Note: if you install the eccentric lower control arm bushings, note that the wheel will no longer be perfectly centered in the wheel well. Rather, it will be ever so slightly rearward. For particular folks, it might drive them mad.
- IMG_2354.jpeg (89.79 KiB) Viewed 587 times
