Prawn and BigAls A3 Track Car

[Prawn]

Cheers Bill, I'll look into adding some shielding


Just bought a full set of LCR cast wishbones and hubs yesterday, to increase camber and castor, as well as correct the roll centre

 

[Westy]

Cheers Bill, I'll look into adding some shielding


Just bought a full set of LCR cast wishbones and hubs yesterday, to increase camber and castor, as well as correct the roll centre

It sounds like you'll have everything fine tuned in time for the ring. I can't wait to see a lap video of that.

 

[aragorn]

Prawn: Some nice driving there, did you have slicks or track tyres on, or were they standard road tyres?

 

[Prawn]

Thanks, I was running pirelli Pzero corsa tyres, which from what I can tell, are a high end road tyre/ low end track tyre. They're certainly not r888 grippy, but better than a t1r or similar

 

[Maz]

Great vids and pics of the car mate, driving skills aren't bad either!

 

[Speedy Steve]

video looks really good mate. Just need a K04 hybrid know to really show every one what Audi A3's can do

 

[Dane]

video looks really good mate. Just need a K04 hybrid know to really show every one what Audi A3's can do

Do it! you've got a limited slip diff, you'll be fine!

 

[Jordan1.8t]

Prawn...

Have you done anything to your rear brakes at all? Ive got some
Porsche ones coming for the front. Was wondering if the rears needed beefingup at all?

 

[Prawn]

I'm eagerly watching bills ko3 hybrid PLUS lupo thread at the mo, it looks incredibly tempting! I'm not after massive power, but seeing wellys result, if I could get something like 300bhp from a reliability friendly 18psi or so, I'd be VeRY happy indeed. I reckon with 300bhp it'd be mental!

Jordan: the rear brakes have been upgraded to 256x20mm s3 vented rears, to help keep the balance a bit more even.

 

[Jordan1.8t]

okay mate, cheers for that.

what did you do with the splash guards? cut the lip of? or fit the proper ones.

 

[Prawn]

I just cut the lip off mate, they serve no real purpose I don't think, took 5 mins to chop off with the grinder, then clean it off and throw a bit of paint on to stop it rusting

 

[Prawn]

More stuff bought! Got a stupidly good deal on this little lot from a place fairly local to me. Wasn't going to bother with a PAS cooler, but dad wanted to try it, and much I've read suggests that it's sustained high revs on track causing the PAS pump to heat the fluid, as well as radiant heat from the downpipe, so I'm doing both!

Mocal 16 row oil cooler, 80degree stat built into the sandwich plate, all hose and fittings, and a 7 row PSF cooler, all for £140 brand new

 

[666markyboy]

do you have a link for bills ko3 hybrid PLUS lupo thread ??? sounds like an interesting read..

 

[S3 Nattie]

Nice video prawn, whens your next outting.

You could try and put your pas cooler down by where the drivers side side mount intercooler was and use the original air feed for it. Could get some nice air flowing to it there. Where was you thinking about installing it.

 

[Prawn]

Well, the oil cooler will be going in the passengers side wheel arch, where the s3 left hand smic would sit. If there's space left in that arch, the PAS cooler will go in there too, as it's easiest to pipe up there. If not, then the pas cooler will be in the RH arch as you suggested

Next outing is the Ring on may 6th!

I'm seriously considering changing the look again now too. Having tried the orange, I'm really thinking of doing the wheels and mirrors silver now to make it look a bit more classy, and a little more of a sleeper to surprise the krauts in may!

What do we think?

 

[Westy]

Good deal on the coolers mate. You are spending a small fortune on this little baby.

I'd love to come to the ring in May but I'm holding out till August.

Give the silver a try mate you will look a bit more subtle

 

[Plunky]

dont be gay, keep it orange

 

[superkarl]

Lime green.

 

[Plunky]

Lime green.

it will look like mine then!

 

[Dane]

Anything to throw Fritz off is good by me

 

[16Klappe]

I'm really thinking of doing the wheels and mirrors silver now to make it look a bit more classy, and a little more of a sleeper to surprise the krauts in may!

What do we think?

Pink.

 

[Westy]

I was thinking last night about getting new road wheels then refurbing my 17" Avus in the Porka GT3RS red colour with 1 Nurburgring sticker in white per wheel along one of the spokes. Then put some decent track rubber on them.

This colour:

 

[mk1chopper]

I like the orange, works well imo, dont see the point of making your track car look like a sleeper, its a track car so why does it need to look subtle?

 

[Alex C]

I like the orange, works well imo, dont see the point of making your track car look like a sleeper, its a track car so why does it need to look subtle?

I agree with that, i like your orange lipped rims, makes it look purposeful and its a track car afterall, dont see the point in making it look like a sleeper... And by the time you've drifted past another evo people will quickly realise its no standard A3

 

[superkarl]

Westle those wheels let alone the colour, are fit!

 

[Westy]

Westle those wheels let alone the colour, are fit!

yeah the GT3RS in white or grey with Guards Red trim and wheels is my dream.

I think next year once I've got my car how I want it I'll get some new wheels and do my Avus in that colour and start doing a few more track events.

 

[monkey_lewis]

have you got round to weighing the machine yet? would like to see what a stripped one comes to, and with the turbo mini excperience of lightening, should be light!! those dudes are nuts, they cut massive holes in the front subframe? surely that must affect handling alot??

 

[Jason.s]

Look a few pages back

 

[Westy]

Post #245

 

[monkey_lewis]

missed that bit my apologies

 

[Dane]

seeing as you like your mini's Prawn thought I'd dig out some old pics of my Grandads mini

 

[Prawn]

Spent a bit of time on this today, nothing huge, and I stopped mid afternoon to watch the F1, but still, progress is progress.

After using the car on track last weekend, we found that the cooling system wasn't up to scratch. I think this is more down to the lack of oil cooler on the car. The cooling system is always going to struggle to keep control if the oil is absolutely cooking, and I'm fairly sure the oil would be getting far too hot on track.

Got the cooler mounted:

Vent holes cut in the arch liner for air flow, and meshed to protect it:

Made up a simple lower bracket in stainless to hold the cooler rigid:

Then got the mounting finished and bolted up:

Just need to fit the sandwich plate and run pipes now, and that's done.

I'm also going to try fitting a power steering fluid cooler, for some bizzare reason the power steering fluid gets VERY hot on track, and the steering goes notchy and whines towards after 10-15 mins abuse. On inspection it appeared that the fluid had been boilling.

Some suggest this is down to radiant heat from the downpipe in close proximity to the rack, although more sources seem to say that the additional heat is due to the sustained high revs, causing the pump to generate more heat.

To combat it, I've got a little 7 row mocal cooler I'm going to mount in the drivers side arch, opposite the oil cooler.

Made a start on how to pipe that up this evening too.

This is the current PSF hard pipe comming off the pump, heading to the near side:

And this it the section I managed to salvage from a set of TT powersteering pipes I picked up a while ago:

It seems about perfect, as it'll send the pipe off towards the drivers arch, right where I need it. Just got to mount the cooler tomorrow night, then start piping it up.

 

[Dani_B19]

Where you get the oil cooler from prawn? Also dont the a3/s3 have a coolant cooled oem oil cooler or that just the s3's?

 

[<tuffty/>]

Where you get the oil cooler from prawn? Also dont the a3/s3 have a coolant cooled oem oil cooler or that just the s3's?

The OEM oil 'cooler' is no where near man enough for track use mate....

<tuffty/>

 

[Dani_B19]

Aww yeah i know that tuffty, i was just meaning, is the standard oil cooler, coolant cooled? When fitting a oil cooler like nick's, do you still retain the standard oil cooler or remove it?

 

[Prawn]

I'm keeping mine, as I don't know how to remove it

Well, not that I can't remove it, but I'm not sure what else runs into it, and how easily removed it is, so I'm happy to leave it in place. The sandwich plate just sandwiches in between the filter and whatever it screws to as standard, as it'll go in with the standard heat exchanger too

 

[Dani_B19]

Can you tap into the sandwich plate for oil pressure/temp gauges? Is it a mocal one nick?

 

[<tuffty/>]

Its easy enough to remove... remove the oil filter then the big nut on the threaded tube that the filter screws onto... just pulls away then... to 'delete' it you need a shorter threaded tube which can be bought easily enough (Bill uses one on his Ibiza) and block off the water pipes...

<tuffty/>

 

[tompearson]

The OEM cooler is easy enough to remove.You can even get a shortened OEM union [059 115 721] to screw the stat plate onto since it is thinner than the OEM exchange. The coolant pipes that feed it appear to be in their own loop and I would therefore assume easily plugged (not got this far yet with mine, which is also an S3 though). Getting the filter on and off could be a ****** if you don't remove the exchange.

Are you planning to remove the existing power steering 'cooling' then. Mine looks shot and a 7 row cooler would almost certainly be cheaper than a new pipe.

Edit : I see Tuffty got there well before me....

 

[nick4501]

I had the joy of having a ride in this on Saturday. 'tis seriously rapid! You need to get someone to record some vids of you drifting around that round-about!

I see what you mean about the mesh now - looks really good. Next time I'm over there we'll have to attack mine too!

Thanks again for all the help mate. She's running nicely