Prawn and BigAls A3 Track Car

[Prawn]

Got the 10s on last night. It feels GREAT!

It was pretty dark, and my battery was almost dead so this photo will have to do, but my god they look good!

They're not a hugely aggressive wheel like the XXR, but because there is minimal dish to them but such a low offset, the whole spoke face sits really far outboard and makes the car look really wide!

I'm actually really liking the silver too. It gives it a touch of class amidst the madness.

Also got the tow vehicle for saturday sorted

 

[Rainbird]

Also got the tow vehicle for saturday sorted

Since you have been so adamant that the A3 will always drive to/from events under its own power I can only assume you need a tow vehicle for your extensive collection of wheel options. If that's the case then you must mean the artic behind the VW

 

[Prawn]

Since you have been so adamant that the A3 will always drive to/from events under its own power I can only assume you need a tow vehicle for your extensive collection of wheel options. If that's the case then you must mean the artic behind the VW

It's staying road legal. That element will never change, but I'm getting on a bit now, and whilst I can cope with late night dramas and adventure trips home, the thought is less appealing than it once was!

If I'd had a friend locally going to ADI I'd have driven the car there and asked them to take the slicks, but after rockys eventful nature, and with the weather looking SO iffy this weekend, I really need a full compliment of wheels and tyres with me, and Eds offered to tow it there behind the van so Im going to enjoy the easier side of trackdays for a change!

 

[Prawn]

Wheels on, splitter on, apart from some ecu tweaks, we are ready for ADI this weekend!

Splitter from underneath:

I think the wear bars are due for replacement this winter. They've done well though. These were fitted in 2013!

I also expelled almost a litre of brake cleaner on cleaning the oil off the underside of the car!

Hoping to get out this evening with the tablet to make a few fuelling tweaks, then we're ready!

 

[Prawn]

These morning updates following progress the night before are becoming regular!

Despite how it looks, I still get very little time to work on the car. This progress is occuring in very short 30-40 minute blasts on the nights where Victoria is cooking dinner

The YOSH magnetic mounts arrived yesterday, as tested previously by @<tuffty/>

They hold the tablet very nicely in a great positon:

And to my surprise there was no wobbling or rattling at all when driving around. I've got it setup here to auto log as I'm driving which was very handy when mapping last night!

I also found 15 mins before picking Oliver up to seal the white wheels with Gyeon Rim Q2 ahead of saturday at Audi Driver

 

[badger5]

forecast suggests they are unlikely to be needed tho...
****** weather

 

[Prawn]

I'll come prepared!

I'm readiness for driving around in the rain all day, I had someone else clean the car today

I can confirm that silver was definitely the right choice of colour for the road wheels. Well done Big Bad Dad


I also fitted a few stickers this evening ahead of ADI, but you'll have to wait for the weekend to see those!


Loading up tomorrow night, then hopefully see everyone Saturday!

 

[Prawn]

Wow. Just realised we have passed 10 000 posts!

That's a lot of waffling about a 20 year old crappy hatch back!


I just re read the first 3 pages for old times sake. Quite funny looking back how plans have changed.

A few fimilar faces even 8 years ago! A big thanks to everyone who has stuck around for the whole story!

 

[bigal 1]

Well, it will be over on Sunday so I can go back to my normal ways. Once again I have been in training for this trackday for the last two weeks.`I've restricted myself to two bottles of red and a couple of Jim Beams a night.

Still I'm sure it will have been worth it. No ,actually it WILL have been worth it.

Roll on ADI with some proper power.

 

[bigal 1]

Wow. Just realised we have passed 10 000 posts!

That's a lot of waffling about a 20 year old crappy hatch back!


I just re read the first 3 pages for old times sake. Quite funny looking back how plans have changed.

A few fimilar faces even 8 years ago! A big thanks to everyone who has stuck around for the whole story!

I do not like the way you describe our trackcar. " 20 year old crappy hatchback".


I hate the word "hatchback"

 

[craigt1985]

I do not like the way you describe our trackcar. " 20 year old crappy hatchback".

I hate the word "hatchback"

Underselling it a bit!...

 

[antwan64og]

The body work is amazingly straight!
Have you rattle canned the bumpers?

 

[Prawn]

Front bumper used to be on @Reesy s demin blue destroyer, it was rattle canned satin black, then Jardo polished it, so it's a random mix of polished satin with blue stone chips

Something may or may not have occured over the weekend too.......

 

[desertstorm]

Looks like you found some good weather to try out those slicks then. Looked like a fairly clean lap, surprised you weren't going a little faster down the main straight into Avon rise. Without the passenger seat in and minus the weight of a passenger your probably the best part of a 100Kg lighter so time to get some plates on the car and go racing .

 

[666markyboy]

Drumming fingers on desk patiently waiting for an ADI update...in other news, damn that car corners flat, must feel like a Kart

 

[Prawn]

@666markyboy would you like a full 40 pic report or a brief summary effort?

 

[Bluepower]

@Prawn, i might have missed it, but what tablet are you using? powered via the cigarette lighter, or hardwired? and the connection to the ECU, via WiFi/BT or cable?

 

[Prawn]

@Prawn, i might have missed it, but what tablet are you using? powered via the cigarette lighter, or hardwired? and the connection to the ECU, via WiFi/BT or cable?

Hi Niels, the tablet is a Linx Vision 8 gaming tablet, discovered by @<tuffty/>

As it's just for mapping and logging sessions currently I'm just using the battery power. An hours road tuning last week used less than 10% battery power, so I'm confident you'd get a full 6 hours + from it at least.

The direct ECU connection for tuning is via the usb cable with an OTG adapter. For future logging of engine parameters I intend to hook up the OBD bluetooth sender to my ECU and log that way using something like the torque pro app.

 

[Prawn]

Does anyone in the Southampton / hampshire area have a spare bonnet I can steal? condition pretty unimportant. I just want to cut one to bits!

 

[sparrow]

Not near you, but I have one.

 

[Prawn]

I guess I should try and write this one up within a month of the event unlike usual

So, Audi Driver International!

Due to a string of unfortunate events, the last time we were able to attend ADI was back in 2015!

Back then, the car looked like this:

Look at that little narrow body and baby wheels

So, roll the clocks forward and just a few things have changed!

Friday night came, and Ed arrived with the worlds largest trailer.

I say largest, it's about 30ft long, but less than an inch wider than the width the car, because some muppet stuck some huge wheels on a short stumpy car

We loaded the tools and spare tyres into the van, and loaded the car on the trailer.

Knowing the car had some pretty front bias weight distribution we kept the car back a little to avoid overloading the hitch. it seemed to balance up about right, but it just looked so far back!

Still, we strapped it down and gave it a try. The plan was to load everything up on Friday night, then Ed would take the car away top secret location, then pick me up in the morning on the way:

It felt SO strange seeing someone else drive off with the car on a trailer. Never again! haha.

Saturday morning came and I was up at 5am with the small person, we shared a cup of tea, it was good

Ed arrived just after 6am and off we went!

First stop was the shell station to fill up with V-power:

Eds van is truly lovely for this. It's only about 160bhp but it pulls it with ease in complete comfort.

I watched the A3 the whole way on the rear cam:

Quick stop at Membury for coffee:

At this point Ed noticed that I'm really quite partial to a picture or two, so decided he'd try and take a picture of me every time I took a pic. Arn't mates great

We arrived at Combe, found a lonely looking Leon owned by a certain Badger, and unloaded:

I obviously took more pictures:

So of course Ed took more pics of me

We got signed on, had a drivers briefing, and met up with Bill, then it was time to head out!

We decided to go out on the AD08s first.

It was wet and miserable, but we wanted to get some sort of baseline rather than jumping straight to wets, otherwise I wouldn't know how good the wets were.

Robin jumped in the passenger seat and we headed out on the AD08s cautiously, onto what can only be described as a lake!

This photo by Anthony Boothman: https://www.instagram.com/anthonyboothmanphotography/

Clearly a brave man to be out in that weather taking pics!

I've not had much wet track running in the car full stop. We've been generally pretty lucky with weather, so it was a bit of an unknown. the limited wet running I have done has always been on a proper semi slick too, so not exactly tyres known for clearing water. It's never really been fun in the wet, and it's always just felt like I'm trying to avoid crashing, rather than learning anything.

This was different though. This wasn't an exercise in not crashing. This actually worked! Genuine surprise

AD08 arn't known for their wet abilities, but I was pleasantly surprised that we were still reaching respectable speeds and still generating some sort of load in the corners despite the conditions.

We started out at 10psi low boost, but I was soon able to turn it up to the mid map around 17psi and was pleased to find the GT30 delivered power in such a lovely smooth way that traction wasn't an issue even in these conditions.

Lap times from that very first session had been ~1:32, not overly representative of anything in particular as it's the first session of the day and just finding out how the land lay, but it's still information that's nice to have.

We came back in, and for a short moment the rains stopped. We debated going back out on the AD08s, but then the heavens opened once again, so I decide now was the time to use my wets if I was going to get to try them!

We swapped to the wets, rain pouring on us (thanks @RobinJI for braving the weather with me!) and headed out. This time Ed jumped in. he's never been in the car before, and I've never driven it on wets, so this was going to be fun!

Exiting the pitlane with some throttle it was immediately obvious that these had decent grip. What I usually do in the rain is give the brake pedal a little stab on the straight to see just how easily it'll lock up. I stabbed the pedal, and instead of locking up, we lurched forwards on our belts!

'oooooooooooooooooooooh'

Ed and I looked at each other. That's got a lot of grip!

Up to quarry and I carefully turned in, only to find that rather than the usual washing out feeling you can get in the wet, the front end bit and turned in. Feeling the steering load up and the car generate some grip was most bizzare, because it certainly felt like we needed a boat for the conditions!

We pressed on and after a few laps it was feeling really pretty comfortable. The rain seemed to come on and off around the lap, but the track remained wet with lots of standing water. the 250 section yokohamma wet tyres just seemed to deal with it all so well. I'd never gone this quick before in the wet!

Here's a little clip from that very first session on wets. me driving, Ed as passenger:

 

[Rainbird]

Since you've been too busy to continue the writeup for a couple of days here's an addition to your thread's post count from another perspective.

By sheer coincidence we'd rented a farm a couple of miles away for the weekend for a family 30th/60th birthday do, so I made my excuses and popped across to ADI for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Excuse the crappy phone images.

Conveniently I arrived at the track not too far from where the post above ends anyway, shortly after BBD had arrived and found a certain A3 waiting for the next session on a newly fitted set of slicks:

I've seen the car in every iteration since it first joined the family as a daily (and even when Nick's mum owned it, as we discussed at Castle Combe!) but holy **** it looks good in its current state!

There was a bit of a delay before the session started, so I wandered about the paddock and have a nose at some of the other cars knocking about. Plenty of sceney wheels-and -lowz type "builds" about which I ignored on the most part, but equally some very capable looking kit too.

I just missed catching "the world's fastest shed" [sic] on track, but given the ~70mph sidewinds at some points I expect it was a bit of a handful.

Not too sure which series this car competes in, but it was quick. From the sidelines it appeared to be one of very few cars quicker than Prawn, though looked much more twitchy and far less composed when lapping than the A3.

And one more from later in the afternoon with BBD heading out for a session. This might actually have been right at the end of the day when "one more session" didn't come to fruition, can't remember.

As ever it was lovely to catch up with some old faces and meet a few new ones - apologies to Bill and Tuffty - I should really have said hello but it wasn't until later in the evening that I twigged who everyone was (credit to a certain covert S3 I guess!).

Anyway, back to the scheduled programming...

 

[desertstorm]

The Porsche is Tom Wrigleys he races in the Porsche Carerra cup, Part of the BTCC package.

https://www.facebook.com/tomwrigleyracing/

 

[bigal 1]

Hi, well, ADI was the first drive for me in the "new car". I was a little aprehensive regarding driving such a "machine" but my concerns did not materialise.

The handling was perfect. No understeer, no oversteer, no brake lockups even when I braked far to late for Camp.
So Nicholas said. (I was trying a new line.)

I was not there in the morning. I live in Cornwall/distance/traffic/roadworks early mornings, etc, but I know the wets performed very well whilst driving through a lake. What's nice is that we have at last , very good wheels and a full set of tyres for all occasions, the best to date. Don't forget to mention the brakes. Nicholas was very complimetary regards the Yoko wets. A first experience for these tyres. They are our third set of wets but the first to be used.

Lap times with Nicholas driving were excellent but we feel that the engine needs a further tweek to reach full potential. On close inspection the radiator was found to be on it's last legs. The temps were far to high. So we have purchased a "race radiator" which will hopefully do the trick, along with a bonnet mod, like the GT40/Ultima design to increase air flow through the radiator.

All in all a very good day and we are very pleased with the handling of the car. It's "perfik."

It was very nice to see everyone and catch up.

Rock on Rockingham in November.

Over and out BBD.

 

[Prawn]

Cheers for the input chaps sometimes it's nice to read about it from someone else's perspective!

Wet laps with Ed complete and we headed in to check over the car. Towards the every end of the session there rain stopped, and although it remained pretty wet we were hopefully that the track would soon start to dry.

Looking over the app data from that session lap times were consistently in the 1:23 region. Quite surprising to find they were almost 10s quicker than the Ad08 in the same conditions! They work then!

We parked up for a chat and a chill whilst the sun came out and stryes to dry the track. It was still pretty wet, but with the drying out conditions we discussed swapping back to the Ad08s.

You can still see a small lake behind the car. Despite the sun, it was still WET!

Thankfully we didn't swap tyres, as 5 mins after this pic was taken the skies opened again and it poured down!

Pouring rain, empty track, car on wets?

Robin jumped in and off we went again

Having now got a feel for the wets we were straight on it. The rainfall was steady but not mega heavy, and the track was wet but without too much standing water. Just a small river to navigate half way along hammer down.

We had another great session. Driving on wets is just pure joy on those conditions. Everyone else is struggling and scrabbling for grip, and we just had complete traction and we're flying along!

Best time from that session was a high 1:21.
It's generally considered that anything under 1:20 (in the dry) is shifting very well around Combe, so to be close to that in the rain really shows how far the car has come.

Ironically, looking back through an OOOOOOLD video, this is actually a couple of seconds faster than the cars first ever outing as a track car back at Combe in 2011! Back then it was ~220bhp , quaife diff, brembos, semi slicks, buckets etc, I thought it was the fastest thing in the world

Old school video from that day here for a laugh:



Back in from that second wet session and the sun was out again. This time it seemed like it was here to stay. Still quite damp, so definitely not slicks weather just yet.

Time for the AD08 again then! I have to say a huge thanks to Robin again for the pit work, and anyone else who helped with the wheel swaps. We have a full wheel change down to about 5-6 minutes now.
The new Kielder 4ah Impact gun works great and cracks wheel nuts off no trouble which really speeds things up! I've also not charged it since August and the same battery just keeps on going!



This time I took Alex out. Alex works at B5 with Bill, so it was cool to take him out and show what he's had a hand in creating.

Despite the drying conditions it was still pretty greasy. There was a dry car wide line around about 40% of the track, but the back half of the track and especially Tower was still very wet so much care was needed on approach!

We had a pretty good session hunting down all sorts of things, and had a few really good laps chasing down Ash Stewart from Regal in his 450bhp golf R. You could really see the 4wd doing it's thing out of Tower and Bobbies where it was especially slippery. We were feathering to find the grip and the 4wd golf just grips and goes! Very impressive.

Back in from that session and despite the drying conditions lap times from the greasy session on Ad08 wernt much different to wet times on the wets! Around 1:20 in that session. Still some way from full speed due to the conditions.

By this time it was around 1130, Mum and Dad were about to arrive (bright and early as ever ) and we heard mention of a parade lap on the tannoy.

With the wind helping the ground dry out, this seemed like an ideal time to swap to the slicks.

Another quick wheel change, and tada!

 

[Prawn]

I was pretty unsure about the choice of wheel colours, but generally I decide what gets done on the car, because I'm the one doing it.

It was dad who instigated the big push towards all the BTCC running gear, so it was only fair he chose the wheel colours this time.

Let's just admire this pic for a second, taken by our resident Protographer, PT

I love them! Both the whites and the silver. I think it was a pretty different choice, but hats off to dad, they look great!

After the mornings running the car was looking absolutely FILTHY. like it had driven through several ploughed fields.

Seeing as the sun had tempted a @<tuffty/> out of hiding, it seemed a shame to have him take pics of a car with the world's cleanest wheels yet everything else brown.

Detailing types look away at this point for your own sanity

Out came the Demon Shine and microfibres to give the car a wipe down of course Tuffty was on hand to capture the magical moment

At this point Mum couldn't contain her obsessive love of cleaning any longer, so grabbed a cloth and got stuck in! Isn't she awesome? Dad's never helped clean the car mid trackday Mum can come again!

 

[Prawn]

This was around the time @Rainbird arrived. Dad and I were sat in the pitlane waiting to go out. We'd just missed one session so had a little wait in the pitlane.

Seemed like an ideal time to take a few more pics:

As we waited, what looked like a bit of competition arrived in the que behind us:

I'm pretty convinced the car has never looked this good before.

Dry weather. Fresh slicks on, I wonder if it'll also go better than it ever has before?

Well, no

We left the pitlane for the 1330 session and accelerated up the rise, jilting the steering left and right returned that snappy sharp feel you only get on slicks.


As we started to build up pace, towards the end of the out lap I noticed my oil pressure alarm flashing at me

******!

hang on, it's back at 60.

No, now it's 0

60, 0, 58, 5, 62, - 10

Minus 10?

Wait a minute, you can't have negative oil pressure.

All of the above occurred in about 2 seconds, I checked both coolant temp and oil temp and both were happy. The dash oil pressure warning hasn't gone off, the engine sounded perfect still, surely this HAD to be a sensor issue?

I backed off and pressure seemed to stay in the positive until we were back in the pits.

Sadly, everything was red hot, so. I burnt myself fair few times trying to rip it all apart as quickly as possible.

With it stripped down we could find nothing wrong, but we checked all the connections and cleaned all the contacts and put it all back together.

By the time it was all back together around half an hour had been lost.

We got Dad strapped into the drivers seat, and headed out!

Living so far away (hint hint!), dad doesn't get to drive the car much. So it's always a little daunting heading out onto a live circuit having not really driven the car at all, but as usual Dad did a great job.

Tuffty was out at old paddock during that session, and got some awesome pics of Dad driving:

We had a really good session today with Dad gaining in confidence the whole time, we were running on the mid map which was around 18psi or so on the day. This gave dad no nasty surprises at all, and I think he was surprised at just how easy it is to drive. The power is really smooth and doesn't make it hard work to drive in the slightest, plus the balance of the car now seems to be spot on. It seems really neutral now on the Gaz Golds. Just the right balance with no undesired traits at all, it just goes exactly where you point it!

Also pleased to report that the oil pressure guage showed a steady pressure for the whole session, so it must have just been a contact somewhere!

 

[bigal 1]

"It was dad who instigated the big push towards all the BTCC running gear, so it was only fair he chose the wheel colours this time."

"I love them! Both the white and the silver. I think it was a pretty different choice, but hats off to dad, they look great!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Praise indeed. Thank you. Yes I do like them a lot. As you said, something different to what is now the norm.(Black, Black and Black, with the odd grey thrown in. They liven up the whole appearance, especially with the white graphics.

I am really looking forward to Rockingham and driving the car again. Getting used to it and pushing a lot more. It all appears to be so safe and stable.

Here is hoping that the new radiator and bonnet mods will decrease temps. They were reaching 120 on the oil. Not good, and does not allow confidence when pushing hard. BBD

 

[Prawn]

I see no mention of any radiator or bonnet mods

By that logic, they cannot exist until such time as they appear in this thread

 

[Rainbird]

 

[<tuffty/>]

...other than all over instagram of course...

<tuffty/>

 

[desertstorm]

...other than all over instagram of course...<tuffty/>

And Facebook

 

[Prawn]

Sad truth is that this thread will always lag behind reality.
This is like a diary, it's a time line of events and a story that I like to take my time to write and give it the attention it needs.

Random little snapshots on Facebook etc will always be more up to date than what's in here as it's just so much more accessible and gets more responses anyway

 

[Prawn]

Lets try and get this write up finished before the next trackday!

I should probably add at this point, that when we arrived to such a wet 8 7morning I had decided to soften the shocks off for the wet running.

I didn't give it too much thought at the time, and just wound 6 clicks off whatever they had been on before. that'll do.



After Dads session we came in, quickly added some more fuel and meth, checked tyre pressures, then I jumped in.

This would be my first proper session on the 265 slicks, in the dry, with a working car.

I was hopeful for good things!

We headed out, tyres cold again by this point, and slowly started to build up some speed.

The car felt good, if a little soft. It was clear with the extra grip on slicks we were getting quite a bit of body roll.

Still, it was very compliant and rode the bumps well, just a little soft when loading it up mid corner and you could feel a little more weight transfer than you'd usually want.

Tuffty managed to grab this great pic showing just how much it was rolling

There was a bit of traffic out on that session, the sun had clearly tempted people out on track!

Things felt good though, we were on map 2 around 19psi, with liberal use of the button for 25psi!

First flying lap around, and the timer showed a 1:18. Not bad for early days bearing in mind we still had traffic.

Second flying lap, again with some traf,fic, Boom, 1:15. New PB

Then another 1:15, then another, again both with traffic.

Then next lap around the GPS missed the start line, so it didn't record a time at all.

With the track seeming quite busy, I backed off to find some clear space in the hope of a good lap, That 2 lap block shows as a 2:48 block on the session.

Then came a clear track!

I wound it back up down Westaway towards camp, and hit Camp on a mission to get a good exit and try and have a clear fast lap.

The proceeding lap felt absolutely glorious. Hitting every braking point and every apex, this was how I'd always wanted the car to feel!



1:13.7 happy with that.

After this we hit some more traffic, and the session came to a close, but we had seen a glimpse of what the car was capable of, and it was awesome!

Feeling pretty happy with it we returned to the boots and checked tyre pressures.
From being set at 29 hot when we headed out they had risen to around 34 on the fronts and 31 on the back, not too bad, but it dues dhow how much you work the fronts when you really get up to speed.

Feeling pretty happy Ed and I then headed out and had a really good fun session. Sadly the lap timer didn't record any lap data and there was a bit of traffic, so I don't know if it was actually much quicker but from the video clip it looks like consistent 1:13s.

Back into the pits, a quick stop for more fuel and meth, and John Cobley jumped in for a ride.


Before heading out again, we remembered the soft shocks (finally!)

I decided to wind them right back then count the number of clicks I put on to get an accurate idea of where they were set.

To my horror when I went to wind the first front shock off to zero it wouldn't unwind any more! Argh!

What was going on? I'd only backed them off 6 clicks from normal for the wet. Why was this now FULL soft?

I checked the other 3 corners, and to my horror/shock/hilarity, we found that all 4 corners were as soft as they could possibly be

Casting my mind back, it suddenly became clear!

When things went wrong at Rockingham Luke and I had wound the shocks back to make the journey home slightly more bearable. I'd then parked it up for a month and totally forgotten I'd done that

What a complete muppet

 

[<tuffty/>]

What a complete muppet

Tru dat...

<tuffty/>

 

[Prawn]

We stiffened it back up, I went for 16 clicks front and 20 rear, both out of 24.

Back down to the pitlane with John and we hoped for a good session.

John's been sprinting an ibiza cupra for a few years and is currently building another ibiza to go racing, so it was great to take someone out who's used to things like this. We've been chatting online for years but only met for the first time at ADI.

Down to the pitlane and sadly we had just missed a session (again!)

We sat there waiting patiently chatting, and as waited we noticed spots of rain on the windscreen

Eek!

Here we were, sat in a pitlane for 20 minutes on stone cold slicks with the rain coming down

We'd waited this long, I wasn't about to leave the pitlane and change tyres this close to the end of the day, so we decided to brave it

Out of the pits and up the rise and it felt pretty slippery.

I weaved about and used lots of braking to get the fronts up to temp, and to my surprise it didn't feel too bad!

We had to be a little cautious and brake little early, but once loaded up you could still really lean on it.

Lap times for the session were in the 1:15s looking at the video, which was to be expected given we had the wipers on for most of it but it wasn't what you'd call wet. Just enough moisture to make you more cautious. The car felt SO much sharper with the suspension stiffened up though!

Back into the pits for a quick swap of drivers and we headed back down to the pitlane for dad to have another drive.

On the way down @Rainbird snapped this awesome shot:

Sadly it wasn't to be though, as even though we had been assures there was one more session of the day, it seems they decided to wrap things up 15 minutes early.

15 mins off the day isn't the end of the world, but sadly because mum and dad had arrived later and we'd had a few issues, this cut dad's seat time by 50% which was a real shame!

Just as well we're off to Rockingham in 3 weeks then for an open pitlane!



Conclusion to follow later!

 

[Prawn]

So, a bit of a conclusion!

Over all - epic day.

It was great to get some running in all conditions. That's just what I needed to learn the car properly on this new setup and I was VERY pleased with how it went in the wet.

Here are 2 plots showing max and min speeds at various points around a lap.

First a plot of the 1:13.7 in the dry:

And secondly a plot from the 1:21 lap in the wet:

. Typically around 10-12mph down on corner speeds which I think is pretty good given the conditions.

What does need more investigation though is the straight line speeds in the dry.

As @desertstorm touched on, we wernt reaching the sort of speeds we expected on the straights at all.

The car seemed to be getting very warm on track, coolant reaching 110 degrees and oil as much as 128c. Egt at one point reached 900.

Since the car came off the dyno at Bills I've done quite a bit of messing around. I've changed the meth nozzle for a larger one in an attempt to get it running cooler, which has in turn really messed up the fuelling and it's now SUPER rich on high boost which is absolutely killing power stone dead.

The turbine hotside bolts have also stretched causing an exhaust leak from the core which seemed to make it much more laggy at low rpm.

It's hard to quantify exactly, but I'd be surprised if its making much if anything over 400 in its current form, and looking at the straight line speeds it's certainly well below the power of the BadgerWagen and the similarly specced TT that Bill also tunes.

Ive already spoken to Bill about it and we're going to find some time this winter to book some more dyno time and work out where exactly I've gone wrong. I am confident the engine is sound, there's just something not quite right in the way I've set it up.
If I get time I may load Bills unaltered map back onto the ECU and change the meth nozzle back to how it was and see how it feels then. I bet I'd notice a huge difference!

Cooling wise, I've found a few issues to address.

Some I knew about, and some I didn't.

Ive known for a long time that I'm not making best use of air flow. I've got nothing in the way of ducting to force air through the intercooler and rad, yet I do have a huge splitter which is trapping a lot of heat in the engine bay.

What I didn't know was that my not very old Direnza radiator was actually not far away from actually bursting!

A post Combe tear down revealed some pretty shocking sights that I'll share soon.

Power steering mods seem to have worked brilliantly. We had no issues at Combe and the steering feel remained constant throughout the day so that's going down as a win. The new 70a alternator also seemed to work just fine, so I'm pleased with the new aux drive setup as a whole.

That's 4 trackdays now where aside from a few fuelling issues and some ancillary failures, the engine itself has shown itself to be strong and reliable.

Turbine bolts stretching is dissapointing, but talking to Bill and othera it seems they all do this. Garrett are obviously aware of the issue as the new g25 uses a v band centre clamp. I've got a few plans to try and avoid it happening again quite so soon, but at worst it might mean turbo off and checked twice a year which isn't hard when it's all on v bands.

Performance wise I'm very happy with how it went all things considered.
To run a 13.7 with Dad in the car, suspension setup totally wrong, and the obvious lack of straight line speed is very promising I think. I think with some weight out and the power/ temp issues resolved it could easily dip into the 11s which would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

A couple of other things I havnt touched on yet is some very minor arch damage.
You may hear in the wet video that as we exit bobbies there is a dip, and one tyre catches in the compression through that dip.

I think running so soft on slicks resulted in more compression at that point than you'd usually get, so the slick did smash off a chunk of arch:

And after loading up Robin noticed that one of my front discs has now cracked:

Given the use and abuse they've had, for £40 I'm not complaining at all! Speaking to my supplier he said that it's not uncommon for them to have these as hairline cracks when we get them from the btcc teams, so this may well have been there all along and only now become noticeable. I'll fit new discs and pads for Rockingham as a precaution, it's not like I'm short of spares!

Big thanks to Bill as always for the entry to ADI. Thanks to @<tuffty/> for taking some epic shots!
Thanks to mum for cleaning the car , and of course to Ed for towing it there and back for me!

All that leaves is to load up and head home!

@Rainbird taking centre stage here with @RobinJI hiding just left of shot.

The journey home was great. I'm totally sold on this towing lark!

I even got home in time to put little man to bed which was a massive bonus and a great way to end the day:

Love the rear camera so I can watch the car following us!

I'll wrap this up with the last of tufftys pics from the day

All in all, a wheelie good day!

 

[desertstorm]

Some things to keep you busy over the next few months. Hopefully some of the proposed mods will help . Just been watching the WTCC race from Suzuka and a lot of those cars have quite large vents in the front of the bonnet area, should help a lot with the cooling along with the rad and also maybe reduce drag a little.
http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&A=113178
The WTCC cars have fully faired wheel arches that help to reduce drag. You have those big wheels sticking out the car that increase the frontal area and won't help it's high speed performance. Is the ECU adding fuel to protect the engine with high EGT's / coolant temperature ?. Just out of interest how much do those wheels weigh with the wide slicks ?

 

[Prawn]

Some things to keep you busy over the next few months. Hopefully some of the proposed mods will help . Just been watching the WTCC race from Suzuka and a lot of those cars have quite large vents in the front of the bonnet area, should help a lot with the cooling along with the rad and also maybe reduce drag a little.
http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&A=113178
The WTCC cars have fully faired wheel arches that help to reduce drag. You have those big wheels sticking out the car that increase the frontal area and won't help it's high speed performance. Is the ECU adding fuel to protect the engine with high EGT's / coolant temperature ?. Just out of interest how much do those wheels weigh with the wide slicks ?

Months!? Watch this space my good man!

There will definitely be an element of drag involved, as well as a weight element as the car is heavier than both Bills and Tony's TT, especially with a passenger and fuel load on board, but I don't think that's enough to account for the lack of straight line speed. We're talking almost 20mph short on other similar cars.

Looking into gear ratios my tall err box also isn't helping, and I'm finding it slightly on the tall side so currently looking into options for anything we can do about that over winter.

Arch fences to block off the front wheels are high on the priority list and will be done if I get time before Rockingham.

The 10j wheels arnt light at about 10.7kg, but the slicks are far lighter than any road going tyre so overall I am 100% confident the added rubber is worth the weight penalty there!

We looked into all the back end of the ecu failsafes and stuff and at the moment I don't have it setup to add any fuelling when things get hot.

On reflection I think it's just the meth intervention on map 3 causing issues and I've not been able to run map 3 on the road for any length of time to really gather data. I need to go out late one night with clear roads and get a proper idea of what it's doing. Hopefully I'll find time for that before Rockingham!

 

[Rainbird]

Months!? Watch this space my good man!

He means until you get round to posting about it