I recently joined this great M2 owners club with the intention of having a comfortable street focused sports car. After some spirited driving, I started to feel out some of the characteristics of the car and got excited when it reacted similarly to my sport bike.
Naturally, I drove home and signed up for a track day (09/11). Kept it simple, full street trim apart from removing the random junk rolling around and Sport+/Traction Mode.
Notable observations
Brakes got hot and soft. I tried to counter this by rolling off throttle and shorter more aggressive braking. By my final session out, I was much better at preserving the brakes to the point where I thought they were adequate.
Engine temps seemed fine. Wasn't paying close attention but at 90°F and humid, didn't throw any warnings at me.
I like traction mode. The comfort throttle makes it much easier to modulate the throttle and the lighter steering helps. Transmission didn't seem to keep the RPMs as high as in Sport+ which I cured by switching to sequential(one more thing to think about). Sport+ is also super aggresive on gear changes and I see the traction light come on.
Tires got moderately hot. I noticed that the PSS got up to 43/40 PSI on the TPMS monitoring system and stock mine were 37/37.
During my last session I got pretty good at conserving brakes, keeping a good line and avoiding the traction/stability control.
I have another track day on Sunday (squeezing a 2nd one in before the end of the season). Not enough time for pads and fluid change but to improve things I am thinking about
TLDR;
- Sport+ vs Traction Mode - I like traction mode but I saw on the forum that Sport+ forces the cooling into a more aggressive mode. Should I care?
- Tire Pressure - What’s a good “hot” temperature for PSS? Is the built in TPMS system “real-time”?
- Brake Color Fade - I just read about brake color fade, would pads prevent that? Or is it bound to happen as I spend more time on the track?