I took the Cosmo out to a track day on the weekend. It wasnt anything too serious, just a fun morning sprint session with around 60 cars in two groups.
This was the first time that I had been out to Lakeside Raceway and I have to say that it is a very fun track to drive, lots of height varation and great corner combinations which can be taken at high speeds without feeling boring or un-challenging.
I raced in the first group of cars, mainly Nissans and I have to say that the Cosmo was absolutely brilliant! I had no trouble keeping up with them in the corners, in fact, it felt like it had some much more left in it in terms of grip.
All of the harshness of my coilovers and body bracing was forgiven due to how bloody well it went on the track... no understeer and no oversteer. It felt very firm and confident in all of the corners, even the crap-tacular Cosmo brakes did well.
My new cooling system was very good. I had replaced the radiator previously and went to thermally controlled electric fans. I had a ton of over heating in regular traffic, but once I put the under-body tray back on, tempreture problems where a thing of the past.
Issues that I had, where that I kept on hitting boost cut on the main straight and my turbo eventually died and left plumes of smoke when on boost, BUT the Cosmo drove home without a fuss, Oh and I think that I ruptured a heater line. I had known about the turbo problems for a while, so it wasnt a big issue.
The track was 2.5 Km long (i think) and I did five laps back to back at about 75% speed. The car was above 3,500 RPM the whole time in manual mode and I only backed off a few times. I can see why the EST Fukayama Cosmo is such a mean track car now. I am looking forward to installing the new turbo, getting a tune and really pushing it!!
