Driving with ACR brake ducts

[ek1]

Is anyone driving around with ACR brake ducts installed? I have this dilemma where on one hand I want to put the ducts on at home, so I dont have to dick around with putting them on at the track and taking them off after, but at the same time they are so freaking low that I doubt I will make it to the track and back with both of them in tact, what with NY/NJ roads and all. At almost $200 per pair they are not cheap, so what should I do?

[ViperTony]

Driving them without issues. Roads are pretty bad in CT. No issues here. ACR Steve drives with his on all of the time and he has his ACR as low he can go without tearing up the roads in NY. You can always double or triple up on the zip ties.

[ACRucrazy]

Buddy lost one on his lowered Gen 3 in a few days of running them. Take it for what its worth.

[kverges]

If I was driving a lot, I'd remove them - they are held in place with a tie-wrap so easy to remove. They hang pretty low and debris can easily shed them. Really, if you want to spend 15-30 min and have jack and jack stands, you can move all 4 perches up 10 turns, set shocks full soft bump & rebound, remove the brake scoops and you are basically back to stock ride height and the benefit of de-cambering the tires for better street wear.

Not worth the effort every day, but if it was going to be 30+ days before my next track event I'd do that as part of my track departure routine.

[ek1]

If I was driving a lot, I'd remove them - they are held in place with a tie-wrap so easy to remove. They hang pretty low and debris can easily shed them. Really, if you want to spend 15-30 min and have jack and jack stands, you can move all 4 perches up 10 turns, set shocks full soft bump & rebound, remove the brake scoops and you are basically back to stock ride height and the benefit of de-cambering the tires for better street wear.

Not worth the effort every day, but if it was going to be 30+ days before my next track event I'd do that as part of my track departure routine.

I do have a jack and jack stands. I got them after thinking that I will bring the front splitter extension and diffuser strakes to the track with me and install them there. This was after seeing the price for replacement diffuser parts. After spending 2 hours on putting everything on (crawling under the car, etc) at home, I realized it was a shitty idea, especially if it rains at the track or if it's nearing 100F outside.

The ride height adjustment idea was also nice, it got me excited about the ACR in the first place. I had this awesome dream of driving to the track using normal road ride height, lowering the car at the track, driving on the track, then restoring the ride height back to road and driving home. Easy as pie. Reality is its not possible because changing the ride height destroys the alignment, so you can either align the car for the street height and have crappy performance on a track, or you can alight it for track height and destroy your tires driving to/from the track. Lose/lose if you ask me. Weird thing is, I have two other cars with air suspension and they can change height by a couple of inches without needing an alignment. Go figure. Anyway, I had the car aligned for a ride height right in the middle between road height and track height and in the 1,500+ break-in miles of road driving I only scraped the front rub strip (short one) once. We'll see what happens.

I think I will stop stop stressing over it and install the ducts at home before leaving for the track. I only ever go to four tracks - NJMP, Pocono, Lime Rock and Watkins Glen and I dont really plan to drive the car anywhere else (aside from a few VOA events), so if the ducts survive the drive to and from, i'll keep them on. If not, I'll start putting them on at the track.

[kverges]

I don't know why you say changing ride height "destroys the alignment." Have you measured before and after? When I set track ride height for the very first time, the camber ended up being right at 2.8 F and 1.9 R. Toe will change very little with ride height. So raising the car takes out some camber (better for street) and lowering adds it. 10 turns is about an inch (a bit different F to R, but for street I'd pick 10 turns because easy to remember). It is a bit of a PITA due to the hard to access rear perches due to diffuser, but is doable in under 30 min.

[ACR Steve]

I drive my car full ducts ,splitter and full track set up on the same streets as you


P.S. never do ride height without corner balancing

[mjorgensen]

What I would be most concerned with is not having them ripped off on the street, but having them funnel road debris into my $3000 rotors would concern me... FWIW.

[allans]

^^^ there you go. I have not installed them and have had no issues with brakes overheating. Best, Allan

[Dfunk]

^^^ there you go. I have not installed them and have had no issues with brakes overheating. Best, Allan

Same here. They're still in the plastic bags hanging from my rafters. I'm not close enough to any long straight tracks that will stress the brakes.

[ek1]

I don't know why you say changing ride height "destroys the alignment." Have you measured before and after? When I set track ride height for the very first time, the camber ended up being right at 2.8 F and 1.9 R. Toe will change very little with ride height. So raising the car takes out some camber (better for street) and lowering adds it. 10 turns is about an inch (a bit different F to R, but for street I'd pick 10 turns because easy to remember). It is a bit of a PITA due to the hard to access rear perches due to diffuser, but is doable in under 30 min.

I have not measured the before and after, I just took Mark Jorgensen's word for it. Plus, I did get the car corner balanced at Woodhouse before I picked it up, so for now I'll just leave it alone, drive it as is see what happens.

[mjorgensen]

I have not measured the before and after, I just took Mark Jorgensen's word for it. Plus, I did get the car corner balanced at Woodhouse before I picked it up, so for now I'll just leave it alone, drive it as is see what happens.

Does not really destroy alignment ek1 just changes it. When we did yours we set it up at the track height, did corners and then comp aligned. You wanted it raised 1/2" for the trip back so we did that and the toe changed minimally, we lost about .2 degrees of camber and gained .10 degrees of toe in so your street driving would be ok as far as tire wear. If you wanted to lower it at the track that 1/2" I do not think it would be an issue as long as you are very precise with the work. When the cars come in they have pretty bad rear dynamic toe (IMO anyway) and if that is not addressed first then I would say that the raising and lowering without checking would not be good.

Hope you are enjoying the ACR for what you bought it for! Take care