Had it on track last friday and found a few things that needed changing, so im changing the spring rates and a couple of setup tweaks and getting it out for a couple of track days in september
Installed my new oil catch tank tonight, its a big old girl at 2 litres but thats what the regulations ask for, that was the last thing required for racing on the car so im hopeful for brands hatch in november
Just need to get a M14 bolt to plug my inlet manifold so I can run the second breather from the rocker cover to the oil catch can now
Bit of an update, had an interesting couple of weeks assessing the damage and slowly making changes ready for the next track day
First up looking at what got cooked on the track day
Thats the spark plug cover for the bin
burnt a hole in the pipe between the airfilter and the turbo
melted the bottom of my air filter
also a bolt dropped down into the cambelt gear
blew a chunk out of the housing and cambelt
Repair time
Replace air filter with larger one since i will be also increasing the power
Installing turbo with 12.9 bolts and k nuts(special thanks to darren for them) to try and keep them together under heat
Temporary relocation of the air filter to get to some cool air
The obvious question is why not just use the drivers side inlet for the filter instead of the long journey through a hot engine bay, but for the moment that inlet is blocked by an oil cooler so until i move that over to the other side and have new oil lines up it will stay there.
I did strongly think about running the turbo inlet pipe straight through the bulkhead and have it in the car but since its noisy with the turbo behind my head I think it might be to loud with the airfilter sat behind the passenger seat, still tempted to try it.
Also mini update, sat down this morning to start drawing up my aero modifications for the next stage, this is stuff i want done before the end of the month, the main aim is to vent both front and rear arches to reduce lift and also drag.
The front design will need adjusting slightly after having another look at the car this morning but the fundementals are there.
So made a start on the back, before cutting looked at other competitors just to make sure they have been running something similar and there cut lines are similar and running in club class.
Saved 4kg off the weight of the car, so i think im about 705kg now, only another 25kg to go to meet my target,will need to change the diffuser mounting points to add some strength back into it as ive removed 5 mounting bolts but overall it should do the job well
next thing i need to do is find someone who can machine 5mm off each of my rear wheel spacers to allow the car to run lower without the tyres touching the outer arches
So a bit more work on the car, took the rear clam of to trim the arches some more, left a 2mm lip on there so try and reduce the chance of it cracking, still not ideal and for brands it looks like I will have to run the car higher than i would like at the back because of the compression at paddock hill bend
Always interesting to look at the layout of the engine and visualise where i can improve and save weight
Also made a start on my second aero project, firstly im trying to reduce drag which started with removing the lower section of the rear clam, now its clean up the airflow fitting the front clam, since the car is only run hard for up to 15mins at a time and I have pretty good brakes now I dont think brake cooling is going to be a major issue, for the moment ive covered them in kevlar but i will get them fibreglassed over properly of the winter.
Next is the drag and lift of the front end as the more downforce I can make there, the more I can make use of the rear wing. The sills are being cut out to release the pressure and the same with door as that is being cut and folded in, this should allow the reduction in wheelarch pressure and also allow my front diffusers to be more effective again helping the front end at speed.
Made more inroads into the sill cutting aswell so its slowly getting there, still more to cut out but it should make a positive difference to the drag and downforce, its curved into the ali chassis so im getting the maximum ventilation possible, just need to tidy up all the edges, then start on cutting and sculpting the bottom of the doors to again remove any restrictions
Its not a great picture so you can see how much has been removed so I will get another tomorrow as you can see all the suspension now from the rear of the car.
Once this is done, just need to put it all back together ready for the 7th of november…its going to be tight!!
Have you seriously considered running it without the aero to see where you are at? Drop the wing and splitter arrangement hence less drag and compare. Add the aero back one you know what’s possible without?
might get that chance the next track day i do at donnington late on in the year as i can do a back to back there, but since the next time im going to get it on track is time attack i wont be able to do it there.
Would be interesting to see what i would gain down the back straight at snetterton with no drag compared to what the cornering speed would be like through corum.
Brands will be interesting as its about carrying cornering speed most of the time, but then you also have the long drag up the hill on the main straight.
All the bodywork is back on the car, need to put the rocker cover back on after finding a leak, its going to be a wet day which is frightening and also good news at the same time.
My cams are all out of time and im down on compression on 2 cylinders so im down on power, hopefully the rain will offset a little bit of that.
When i get down there im going to put some softer springs on and do some camber adjustments.
If the car lasts the day then great, if not then it will be a learning experience
