Originally Posted By: thescreensavers
I do want to do another track day so I was going to buy a bigger oil pan that has better baffling and guage setup before next time, but this is my DD so it will do track days very infrequantly.(I mostly autocross)
Your Oil is fine, I just want to comment on the track stuff.
Where are you measuring your oil from and what type of gauge do you have?
From my experience, a 13' STI will start getting into the 255F+ range one to two laps in (starting at 180-200F) and I'm making stock power. This is measuring with sandwich oil adapter plate right above the oil filter. Regardless going into 270F is fine. (if the oil can handle it
)
Save your money on the bigger oil pan, once you get more used to car, the track, and improve your skills, the oil (or oil temp) will not hold back your sessions.
For example, two things I'll be working on is fixing possible overheat conditions with my watertemp. It happens more on short tracks with not long straights. On longer straights like Road America, you're just feeding so much air into the radiator that the issue takes awhile to creep up. So getting a bigger radiator is priority #1 for next year. They shrunk down our model year radiator compared to previous years.
Secondly, I've had fuel cuts off at around 6k RPM, which is still way below redline, coming out of longer high G turns on to longer straights. This is reproducible with under 1/2 a fuel tank, and happens more often with 1/4 tank. So the fuel system is another weak link on the car. Easy solution is keep your tank above 1/2 but that's more weight!
Gauges are a good idea because they will let you know what you need to improve on the car once you get to those points.