I'm back from my yearly track weekend with good and bad news. The good news is that the oil pressure alarm that I installed (search on previous posts from July/August) didn't get triggered in any of the high speed sweepers despite the fact that I was carrying a lot more speed this year than in previous years (Konis, H&R's, wider tires, "Aussie" sway bar).
The bad news is that part way through one of the latter track sessions I lost a lot of engine power - I would guess that it was down by something like 30 to 50%. No CEL, no temperatures out of normal, no other warning lights or symptoms. I back off and limped into the pits - fluid levels all good, wires looked normal, nothing else abnormal looking under the hood. I let the car cool down then took it out of the road to see if the problem was still there - wasn't - back to normal. I took it out in the next session (after a lot of internal debate!) and kept the RPM's below 5k - no problems. Then I went back to shifting just before the red line as I had been doing before - no problems. And no problems on the way back from the track.
So I don't know what happened. It was very hot and humid, but I was running high octane (non-SVT engine by the way). I had been higher in the revs on the few laps before it happened. I haven't pulled the plugs yet to see if anything looks unusual. The only "odd" symptom I can point to is that starting Saturday morning (but before I had been on the track) the warning light re: low coolant would stay on after I started the car but would go off about a half minute later - never had that before, but the coolant level was at the "max" level (where it always is) - I kept an eye on the temperature gauge all weekend but it never got above where it normally sits.
Upshot, I haven't a clue what happened - I'm hoping that the electronics saw something that sent it into some "self-preservation" mode. But I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with oiling. Any ideas?
On a happier note, the car did very well against the BMW's - M3's easily took off down the straights from me, but only a few were quicker through the corners. But then all of us are at a skill level that is still a good bit lower than the cars' potential.
Eric
