Prawn and BigAls A3 Track Car

[Prawn]

Silverstone cancelled due to snow.

A bit gutted, but this is the pitlane at Silverstone on Tuesday:

Today they made this one:

So I can kind of understand!

Instead, we've decided to have an all out trackday weekend in February instead, and booked Donnington Park for feb 24th, as well as going to Abingdon in feb 22nd

Should be a great weekend, and gives me time to get the fire ext system installed this weekend along with a few other little bits and pieces.

 

[Prawn]

Took the car out this morning for the first proper time on the new Vred tyres. I wasn't 100% convinced at first, as I was still getting wheelspin on full throttle a lot, much like before.

Then I reached a roundabout, and suddenly, it all started to make sense

Whilst grip isn't hugely increased under acceleration, I don't think that's possible in wet conditions, as you're just spinning the tyres freely with no real load against the tarmac.

Under braking, and cornering, the Vreds seem absolutely fantastic in the soaking wet compared to what I've been used to, really gives me the confidence to push on nicely.

On my test roundabout, I was about to go around as quick in the soaking wet this morning as I dare take my megane daily around in the dry, so that's a good sign

Nice to see it off the drive!

The big 235's offer lots of grip in these conditions

So, enough playing around, time to get to work.

I've been wanting somewhere to mount a battery cut off key for a while now, and since getting the fire extinguisher system for Xmas (Thanks family!) I needed somewhere decent to mount a pull cord for that as well.

I didn't want to lose the radio, which would have been an ideal location, so decided to find somewhere else.

I decided upon, the ashtray position:

A bit of CAD to realise my thoughts....

Looked a bit bland, so I added some switches:

Happy with the location and shape, I decided to make it in steel:

I've made it so that although it's not reliant on it, it meets the top mounting screw that the ashtray used to locate on. The panel is free standing off the tunnel though, so it won't be putting any load on the console.

It was getting really warm in the garage, which I thought was most odd. Especially as I didn't have the radiator on

Then I realised why....

Ohps!

I made up some side plates for the plate to give it a bit of strength if/when I have to pull on the fire ext cable!

Didn't bother taking pictures during that bit, I forgot.

Quick clean up and a lick of satin black. Sadly I didn't get any decent pics as it was too dark:

Brought it inside just so I could get a pic:

Will mount the Fire ext pull cord and battery cut off tomorrow, and give it a final coat of paint

 

[Golfyste]

Looks good prawn, what extinguisher system hae you got? How's it set up?

 

[Prawn]

I've got a lifeline FireMarshall 4.0 system mate, it's got 4 nozzles, so 2 in the car and 2 under the bonnet. To activate it's got 2 pull cords. One which mounts within reach of the driver, and a second that will go on the scuttle for activation from outside in the event of an accident

Obviously, I'll leave the pin in when it's parked on the road!

 

[phil miller]

Good stuff mate, i love your CAD design

 

[Golfyste]

I've got a lifeline FireMarshall 4.0 system mate, it's got 4 nozzles, so 2 in the car and 2 under the bonnet. To activate it's got 2 pull cords. One which mounts within reach of the driver, and a second that will go on the scuttle for activation from outside in the event of an accident

Obviously, I'll leave the pin in when it's parked on the road!

sweet! Does it lock in position once you pull the cord?
Haha yeah guarantee some twit will pull it!

 

[bigal 1]

Hi there's a locking pin on the extinguisher and when in place, no pulling of any cables will activate the foam discharge. There is also a locking pin on the head of the cylinder so when the trigger is pulled all of the foam will be discharged. Its a proper pro system and we are very happy with it. As Nicholas said, two nozzles in the engine bay, eleven o'clock and five o'clock, one for drivers foot-well and one for WMI tank area. The passenger also has a separate cylinder for manual activation, under his knees. All in all we think its a well covered subject. Lets hope we never need to use it. Lots of emphasis on safety now, as everyone has probably noticed.

As a side remark, its vital that these foam extinguishers and recharged every 24 months. Apparently, after talking to a fire expert in Plymouth, the foam capability will degrade and will come out as water. Its not expensive, he quoted me £40 for a re charge.

 

[RobinJI]

Good to know the recharges are sensible money, it looks like a really nice system and should be a great thing to have on the car.

Personally I'd be tempted to put something more positive than just the pin in it when on the street. I know there's no chance of it actually discharging with the pin in, but that wont stop a little scrote yanking on the handle the best they can, potentially damaging things. Maybe you could put a simple cover/bolted strap over the handle just as a visual deterrent?

New switch panel inside looks good Nick. Looks like there's plenty of space on it for more switches should you need them too.

 

[bigal 1]

The external handle, if wanted/needed could be removed and re-fed through the liner.

I would like to see the design of the simple cover/bolted strap over the handle you have in mind. Mind you, a cheaper way would be to stick a picture of a machine gun on the windscreen.

 

[RobinJI]

All I was thinking was a piece of flat bar bent to go over the handle with a small bolt either side. Sort of like this but much narrower:

But yeah, you're right you could just remove the handle all-together. Or guns are indeed always handy.

 

[Prawn]

Finished the panel tonight

I see where you guys are coming from. I had thought of disconnecting the cable when parked on the road, but I guess that would still allow pikeys to steal the whole handle and cord! Perhaps removing it isn't such a bad idea really they shouldn't be too visible anyway once done. That'll have to wait due another week though

also, as Robin said, I've left plenty of room for further switches if required

 

[Golfyste]

Cheers for the info bigal!
I will be looking into one once I have all the basics down!
looks tidy prawn keep up te good work!
Whens the next track day?

 

[MIGGZ]

done a neat job dude. i like the position

 

[<tuffty/>]

Excellent work Nick... guess I need to pull my finger out huh...

<tuffty/>

 

[Prawn]

Excellent work Nick... guess I need to pull my finger out huh...

<tuffty/>

You sure do PT, because currently I look a right tit with a battery cut off that's not wired up

 

[Prawn]

Small update or random stuff.

I suspect my methanol injection is syphoning these days, so I've just ordered a devils own solenoid to hopefully cure this annoying issue.

I have a new forge 007 piston on the way with the revised seal, so I'll get that rebuilt and tested and see how it performs

Also ordered an S2000 filter, my jetex has seen some use, and I fancied testing an S2k filter as it seems to be all the rage at the moment.

JKM Dyno day saturday too, that'll be fun

 

[MIGGZ]

Small update or random stuff.

I suspect my methanol injection is syphoning these days, so I've just ordered a devils own solenoid to hopefully cure this annoying issue.

I have a new forge 007 piston on the way with the revised seal, so I'll get that rebuilt and tested and see how it performs

Also ordered an S2000 filter, my jetex has seen some use, and I fancied testing an S2k filter as it seems to be all the rage at the moment.

JKM Dyno day saturday too, that'll be fun

how did you work that out?

im also doing this soon just need to make or find a heat shield

 

[Prawn]

how did you work that out?

im also doing this soon just need to make or find a heat shield

Colour coding, I like what you've done there!

I've suspected the meth to be syphoning slowly for a while now, ever since it was mapped again at R-tech I've thought it'd been using a horrendous amount of meth.

Lately, in the cold, I've been experiencing a bit of a hesitation when I first take the car out, It starts and warms up fine, and I trundle at walking pace to the main road, but on first application of the throttle to get up to speed with the traffic (gentle acceleration on a cold engine to ~30mph), I'd been noticing a pretty servere hesitation and missfire, which then seemed to clear itself pretty quickly, lasted maybe 5 seconds at most before all returning to normal.

I had just put this down to my old school bosch injectors with their single cone spray pattern, not being ideal under cold start conditions.

I noticed 2 weekends ago though, that this hesitation is strictly limited to the very first use of throttle only, and when it happens, an unusual amount of white smoke appears behind the car, for the duration of the missfire, then it stops and never returns.

I also noticed, that same weekend, that when I fired the car up on a saturday morning, the fluid low light for the WMI was flashing, and I knew absolutely 100% it hadn't been flashing when I parked the car up.

I started monitoring my meth tank then, and it seems that overnight, the level in the tank drops by 5-10mm. Over the course of a week, the level in the tank drops by 15-20mm.

I think the hesitation I'm getting when first reaching positive boost, is the leaked W/M mix that's sat in the bottom of my IC, which under idle and warming up just sits there, then gets forced through under boost and causes the hesitation.

I've been running a Jetex filter without a head shield for years, so I'm just going to stick this S2k filter on and see what happens

 

[MIGGZ]

what a reply thanks dude that makes sense i get white smoke to but like once in 2 or 3 months

 

[Prawn]

I have joined the pikey air filter club:

Fitted last night, then today, went to JKM for a dyno day with the boys from Golf GTI.

R-tech tuned ko4 golf on the dyno:

Rolled 286bhp before splitting a boost hose exactly the same as mine did at Rockingham last year.

Jamies ibiza ran:

And sadly made just 187bhp before they had to abort the run due to fuelling reaching 17:1 - something very wrong here that we've been trying to chase through logs for a while. It's not getting fuel at all. Not cool.

Ticcy came along with a few other people we know, and we convinced him to dyno his stock leon:

183.5bhp, bang on the money for a standard car.

Then mine went on towards the end of the day:

Jim almost got lost in the seats!

A whopping 52.7bhp more than Jardos fastest A3 in the world.

 

[s3dave]

Have you lost some bhp Prawny?

 

[Prawn]

A little Dave, but I think I know how to fix it

 

[superkarl]

no full boost run??
dam good to know its consistent tho on actuator

 

[Prawn]

Must be the dodgy S2K filter.....

 

[smurfworth]

Looks nice in that bay though

 

[badger5]

I'm confused

whats this one then?

 

[Prawn]

Damn you badger man, you ruined my teasing

Car did good. Happy as a pig in the proverbial 327.7bhp 335lbft from just a shade under 20psi of boost

 

[superkarl]

lol.

I had no idea you were teasing. It was obvious to me it was an actuator run. 14psi??

 

[badger5]

jamies ibiza, odds on fuel pump sagging. ibiza pumps are poor

 

[Prawn]

Exactly what I said it'd be Bill Thanks for the info though, I didn't know they were weak on ibizas!

Wouldn't surprise me though, believe it not, that car has been running a ko3S and a stage 2 map for 11 years now!!!! first ko3S ibiza Jabba ever mapped back in 2002! Used to be their silver press car in the early 00s

 

[Prawn]

I MAY have forgotten to put a zip tie on the N75 pipe after rebuilding the DV on Friday night. The pipe popped off after the first run and it was trying to run uncontrolled boost as it spooled up.

The power line was going almost vertical at 3300rpm and shot past 300bhp almost instantly before Jim aborted very quickly. I realised what it was straight away and nipped a zip tie on there and all was good again

Very consistent too, 297.7bhp and 280lbft on actuator at 1 bar, and the 3 full power runs were 327.4, 327.3, and 327.7 bhp on all 3 runs with 335lbft each time. Boost peaking just a fraction under 20psi tapering off towards the top end with 17psi at the redline

 

[paultownsend]

Has the new filter added or taken any power?

 

[Prawn]

Hard to say really Paul, but I certainly don't go I it's lost Anthony anywhere in the range. Airflow appears to be comparable or higher at points across the range it can still read.

Installed the extinguisher today:

and mounted up the first pull cable:

Easy access to check the pressure gauge, pull the pin before a trackday, or disconnect the cables if needed whilst parked up.

and a few more fire pics for good measure

 

[stevegti2]

why is your batterys still under the bonnet it frees up loads of space and air filters nice and cold in that far corner....hour job lol

 

[Prawn]

why is your batterys still under the bonnet it frees up loads of space and air filters nice and cold in that far corner....hour job lol

Very good question Steve

I'm going to have to pass that question onto our resident expert, Tuffty:

Paul, please explain

(all will become clear)

 

[Prawn]

Scanned the printouts properly now that I'm at work

Red is actuator pressure, blue is full boost:

BHP vs Fuelling:

 

[<tuffty/>]

Very good question Steve

I'm going to have to pass that question onto our resident expert, Tuffty:

Paul, please explain

(all will become clear)

I booked a week off at the end of the month and will sort the cable out then mate

<tuffty/>

 

[S3 Paul]

Do you think the S2000 filter helps or hinders things then?
very good figures by the way

 

[Prawn]

Thanks Paul. I'll be honest, it's very hard to say about the filter.

Because of the power output of the car, it actually exceeds the limits of the airflow meter, so peak airflow cannot really be logged.

From the logs I did before and after, both with and without meth, at comparable RPM points in the logs on full throttle airflow appeared to be up maybe 3-4gs on average, although peak values remain unchanged with the sensor giving a maxxed out flat line reading of 195.6gs for about the last 4-5 sample points in the range.

The car made pretty much exactly the power figures I expected on saturday with the filter fitted, and it certainly feels no less lively with the honda filter on, although my jetex was 3 years and around 50k miles old, so it's not a direct and fair comparison.

Either way, I'm happy with it

 

[s33nyboy12]

Prawn I have a quick question for you.....

I notice in the pics above you don't have a upper engine strut brace on, do you run without one mate?

Have you ran with one before ? Are they over-rated on higher power fwd is what I'm starting to think as mine gives me daft understeer.

Sean