Pics of my 500E on track
 

http://www.bookatrack.com/isapi/bat.dll?2&gall&a&b&c&0&1795&345#j

:D

Bri

Track Pix
 

Intersting Shots! Some show what appears to be the classical "massive oversteer" as they say. And tire smoke. One presumes you have installed ASR defeat?

If not, how about filling us in on how you attained those "attitudes"!

Rgds,
Chris Whitney
'93 500E.
I HOPE it's tire smoke, and not exhaust smoke!

I just unplugged the wheel speed sensors to disable the ASR.

Yes it was tyre smoke :-)

Bri

Wow! Very nice shots and pretty cool driving too.

So give is your oppinnion of the track characateristics on this car. Once the ASR is defeated how does the car react through corners?

It's 'ok'. Its fairly nimble and very fast on the straights.

The brakes fade after a few hard laps, and the tyres go off very quickly. Theres no getting round the weight issue.

Its nowhere near as fast on circuit as my Elise, but its a bit more fun. Disable the ASR and you can slide it everywhere. ;)

Bri

Hey Brian

Your 500E has the SL500 brakes, they can fade under hard use.
An E500 gets SL600 brakes - anyone know if these fade on the track?


What tyres are you using?

later!

The SL 600 front brakes do handle the abuse better-I was able to switch from a full race pad to E-spec "Textar Yellow Box" pads. I run primarily @ Lime Rock, which has one big braking event (120ish down to 60ish) and 2 small braking events in its 1.53 mile circuit.

Nice pics, Bri! Indeed they are a bit ponderous, but do better than you'd expect. Brakes are super strong, and there's a pretty solid amount of power. Would love to lose 500 lbs. though:rolleyes:

Wouldnt make any difference if it had SL600 brakes or not... theres noway you could repeatedly brake that amount of weight from 130mph to 30 every 20 seconds as on that track.

A friends R34 Skyline GTR boils its brakes on the same circuit and he has like 15" 8 pot brakes on it.

I just cruised round after a while just sliding at the corners

Bri

Brian: Pardon the pun, but it looks likes a little brake fade sure didn't stop you from having a blast :D
This may be a dumb question, but you do run a high temp brake fluid like ATe Super Blue or Motul 600, right? Also some racing compound brake pads might help. Thanx for sharing the pix with the group!
Gary

I blame the tire smoke on the non LSD diffs that mercedes uses. I know my track times would drop if I had a LSD diff, but I dont want to pay 4K for one from renntech, and there are no late modle mercs with LSD diffs that will bolt up.

That is why there is so much tire smoke right, you were guning it?

Zrusny, I just run standard fluid and pads. I didnt get brake fade entirely, just felt them go off. The car is my daily driver and I have a 200bhp Lotus Elise for track work, so there seemed little point in thrashing the Merc. It was just an experiment to see how conrollable the 500 is when it oversteers.

Subman, on the straights it was spinning the left hand rear yes. In some on the photos though the car is fairly sideways, and it'd be lighting the tyres up with or without an LSD ;-)

Bri