The recommended shock and strut setting as well as tire pressure setting from the crew at Steeda were extremely close to perfect for our driving style, and we only needed to make very slight tire pressure changes to dial the car in.
The Nitto NT01 tires were incredible to say the least. At no point did it feel like we were close to the limit of the tire's grip. Our pressures were initially set cold at 28 psi in the front and 29 psi in the rear, but we noticed that the front tires were rolling over early in the session. To remedy this problem, we added two psi in each corner bringing our tire pressures to 30 and 31 psi respectively. The addition of two psi all around eliminated the feeling that the tires were rolling over and worked well for the rest of the weekend.
At the end of each 30-minute session, our tire pressures grew to about 38 psi all around. With the car feeling as good as it did, coupled with our lack of seat time on a circuit like VIR, we opted to focus on getting comfortable in the car and not making further adjustments to the suspension. It was more important to hit our marks on track and become more consistent before making more changes to the car.
Over the course of the weekend, the brakes felt precise and consistent. There wasn't any hint of brake fade no matter how aggressive we got with the binders. Our Mach 1 had no problem consistently slowing from 140-plus mph to just over 60 mph-impressive given the car weighs over 3,600 pounds without a driver.
In the two-day event, we had more than our fair share of track time. We even got the point by from a few Z06 Corvettes, a Porsche, and even an ACR Viper, which couldn't keep up with us through the turns. Of course once we got to the straight section our 309 rwhp was no match for any of the aforementioned sports cars.
All in all, we couldn't be more pleased with our on-track results. We took a 309 rwhp Mach1 and ran with cars normally way out of our league. After the addition of Steeda's suspension, Shake 'N Bake has great handling, incredible braking, and is extremely controllable no matter how you drive it. Imagine what we could do with a little more power.