I bought my '8 just about 2 months ago, and will be taking it to the track for the first time in 3 weeks (can't wait, especially after the car I took to the track the last two summers!). A friend who is an instructor at the same track and whose car-related advice I tend to trust recommended changing my oil both before and after the event. He specifically recommended it because it will be my car's first two oil changes, but also said that it's what he does with his own cars. The thinking behind doing it before the event is to clean out any metal shavings, etc., that may have gotten into the oil during the car's first 2000-3000 miles. Makes sense to me, and I'm assuming that changing it again after the event will be to clean out any crap that got in the oil after driving the car hard all day. Right now I plan to follow his advice, especially the pre-track oil change, but I wonder what you guys think...?

 

Yep, you should really change your oil right before and Right after the track event.

Why? because your engine will see a lot of stress, so its better to have new fluid so you can be sure that the protection stays as maximum.

and when your event is over, your oil will be full of the *stress/crap* in it, so its better to drain them out, you dont want those crap to keep cycling in your system.

and dont forget, each oil drain will only get about a bit less than 4 quarts of oil out, you can get about 6 quarts of oil out if you open all the oil cooler lines and drain the coolers, but its very time consuming. You can get a bit more oil out by, open the drain plug, Jack the passenger side up as high as you could, put it back down, then jack the driver side up as high as you could. that way you can get about 5 something quarts of oil out.

 

Sounds good...you should change your oil at 1K miles for the first time...and by the time you've thrashed it for the day at a track...that oil is toast as well.....

"Oil is cheap....engines aren't" ( my good old Dad )

 

Well, that was quick/easy. Thanks!

That's the first time I've heard that.

 

Changing the oil after say a two day event where you rack up about 200 hard miles, is a bit of overkill in my opinion. If you do that you are assuming that 200 miles of hard driving is equivalent to a full oil change interval, like 3,000 miles. I would agree that the oil should be changed more frequently than your normal change interval, but one two-day track event will not render the oil useless.

Better to change the oil for viscosity reasons to suit the ambient temps. If you run one, two or three events before the ambient temps change significantly, add oil and keep on trackin'.

If you REALLY want a definitive answer to this question, send appropriate samples to Blackstone Labs for analysis. That's really the only way you will know for sure if such frequent oil changes are required. I have done that with oil that stayed in the engine for several track events and the oil was in good shape.