JST Performance Hyundai Veloster N First Impression
Is it too soon to say "I love you?!" After 1 month of ownership and our first track event in our new Hyundai Veloster N, I think we can officially say that we love this car!
We walked away from Roebling this weekend with nothing but great things to say about the Veloster N. The car is fast, fun, and seems to be pretty reliable on track. We were able to squeeze out an impressive 1:21.7 at Roebling Road Raceway, but we would bet on it getting in the 1:20's on our setup for sure. For this track event, the only changes that we made to the car were a set of Konig Ampliforms and Falken RT660's (which added grip, while also shaving a bit of weight...ours weighed in at just under 3K pounds on this setup). We think that this car would still likely be close in times on the OEM tire setup though.
Between 2 drivers, we did roughly 30-40 pretty hot laps and had zero issues with any temperatures from the oil, coolant, or brakes. These cars come with performance brake fluid so we didn't worry about changing it, and the car has some pretty nifty performance monitors on board to help keep track of your temps. From our initial impressions, this car is a GREAT street car (comfortable, fast, fun, and has plenty of bells and whistles) and now we can say that it is also apparently a pretty good track car as well.
The only complaint that we could come up with for track use so far is the lack of front camber or camber adjustment. We would estimate that the car only has maybe a half degree of camber as it sits. Ours is a MT, but the DSG model runs around an extra degree of negative camber from stock, and it is rumored that changing out some parts from the DSG model may yield a small amount of camber adjustment for the MT models (we will be digging into this for sure).
As far as driving goes, we have owned a ton of cars and pretty much any performance car in the 60k and under range. We would say that this car is a blend of an FK8 and a Focus ST. Its not quite as sharp as the FK8, but it feels like it pulls out of the corners just as hard. The car is still a blast to flip around and will easily rotate the rear like a Focus ST. With the OEM tires the car is very easy to slide around playfully on the street.
The car is easily toss-able, feels very light, and allows you to get on the gas very early. The Veloster has data readouts for boost, oil temp, coolant temp, tire pressures, G force, lap times and much more. It will allow you to go back after sessions and look at graphs of the last 30 minutes for all of those parameters. Its also extremely easy to put into "N" mode and to completely disable all nannies (no pedal dance here).
Check out our 1:21 lap at Roebling by following the link below:
https://youtu.be/TN_nzmM_1Ms?t=1
We are looking forward to having a lot more fun with this car!