Looks awesome Duncan, good luck for sunday

 

Looks great with the new bumper!!


Ricey

 

Where you Sunday Duncan?

 

Snetterton for the last round of this year's Time Attack.

 

looking very nice mate

 

Well, we were up against it when the head gasket went on the dyno on friday night while setting up the nitrous ... I believe that it would have gone in the first session anyway today. I had given up at this point and arrived back home at around 2 am from Zen given up on snetterton. Thanks to some serious words from Rachel (my wife) she convinced me to give it a go - if it could be done we should try.

Thanks to some great friends (Julian, Drew, Paul, Andy T, Bev and Liz) and a very large amount of will power (+ red bull and junk food) starting at lunchtime on saturday - got the engine out, repaired, rebuilt and back into the car last night and got home at 3am !!

I got about 2 hours kip then load up and off to snetterton with Rachel and my daughter Annabelle at 6am.

Unfortunately it was still smoking and despite trying all we could (even some old skool radweld) the car never made it off the trailer - I suspect a cracked cylinder head. I will pull the engine out in the next couple of days and see what I find and decide to what level to rebuild it.

Gutted to say the least that I didnt get to test ride the aero (and other) improvements in anger on my home track but it would have been daft and expensive to risk another complete engine build on the back of trying a lap on full pace (as tempting as it was).

I always knew this would be a tough year jumping up into this class but I am confident of the cars potential once these niggles are resolved. Looking at the time sheets from today confirms this.

Huge thanks to my sponsors/supporters for this year:

Apex / BC Racing
Lateral Performance
ABW Bodywork
Zen Performance
Keith Michaels
CJS Norwich

Also an unbelieve debt of gratitude to my friends and family for their help and support during the year and for the huge number of people on the various forums I frequent that support me. Thank you.

Next year will be special ... I have unfinished business !!

Watch this space

 

unlucky mate wondered why it was sitting on the trailer was looking forward to seeing it going round better luck next year

 

Bloody good effort mate. unlucky

 

Sorry to hear about the engine problems Duncan, I bet you were gutted Good luck for T/A 2011 fella

Lee.

 

Really feel for you mate, today was horrible
But, Next year...
Better, Stronger & faster! Bring it on

 

Onwards and upwards Dunc. You've give it 110% and racing is easy.

Heres to TA 2011.

 

Sorry to hear this, Duncan

As already said, you did the very best you could, so bring on next year!

 

Cheers.

Some pics:

Willing to try anything to get it running right











Shame there are no action pics ... this was about all I could muster after we called it a day on sunday:

 

That spoiler is huge!!

 

Its the same spoiler as before tbh - just with some amendments

 

Can't say I remember it looking so big!

 

spoiler is mahooosive!!!!

looks ace

 

People will start to talk Kosta


The end plates are different and the angle of the photo is designed to make it look enormous

 

 

Fpmsl
I forgot about Rachel taking that pic. Still can't believe that Radweld and Redbull didn't fix it

 

I know they say Red Bull gives you wings, but I think you're taking it a bit far with that rear wing

 

Bumper looks did it fit round the intercooler pipework ok

 

Perfectly

Only trimming needed was at the sides/bottom of the intercooler.

 

In the absence of an engine in the car, I thought it would be a good time to update the thread with info on the clutch replacement that was done pre Scooby ShootOut.

600bhp and 600 lb/ft torque is pretty much a nightmare level at which to spec a clutch. Generally twin plate clutches are at their limit at this level but Apex suggested one of their new clutch range would do the job.

Ever willing to try something new and having read up on the specs of it, it seemed like it should do the job.

The std clutch is a pull mechanism but the new clutch was a push clutch. This isnt a problem as they supply everything you need in the box to fit it, new slave cylinder, cage to reverse the mechanism and even an alignment tool - that comes in VERY handy as it is almost impossible to align without.

Some pics ...





It looks pretty but the best bit is that it coped very nicely with over 600 lb/ft of torque at around 3500 rpm on the dyno when recently testing NOS and feels great to drive with (aswell as being great value).

 

Whats the feel like duncan ?,it looks exactly the same as that horrid carbonetic triple plate i removed from mine !!.
cost ?

 

feels great - no judder or harshness and nice and light

 

Looks like you had fun today Dunc!!!

 

Looking good fella, do they do a 5 speed equivalent ?, What was it like price wise pm me mate.

 

I am pretty sure they do - speak to Bren at Apex re them.

The clutch was absolutely perfect on track yesterday just the right amount of bite and weight to the pedal.

One thing that I have noticed re changing from pull to push is that is is very easy now to set the bite point to where it suits your driving style. I raised the bite point up a lot yesterday so that it makes for quicker gearchanges using the flat shifting on syvecs. (ie less pedal travel to fully disengage clutch)

Gary - yes I had a ball yesterday at Cadwell. It has to be my favourite circuit in the UK i think.

Rain on the approach to the circuit didnt bode well for a grippy start to the day but I was desperate to try out the recent improvements and bug test and get a head start on prep for next year's TA.

The idea for the day was to trial the aero and make sure the engine is spot on after the top end rebuild I did on saturday.

Plan was to run on low boost (1.6 bar) and 25% meth mix as it seemed a waste running race fuel in amongst all the track day traffic of cadwell. As much as I love the place track day traffic there can be a nightmare. I also removed the Nitrous bottle and left it at home to save me from temptation LOL



After a 'one lap and come in' to check bolts etc I was tiptoeing around the first session as the track was very greasy but felt surprisingly at ease with the car through the sections of the track that i was losing time at in TA in august so started upping the pace.



Even on 2 year old 888's with 1mm of tread the car felt good in the wet and as it started to dry out and a dry line appear (even though it wasnt the fast line in places lol) I could fully push on and get some heat in the tyres and test the feel of the car mid corners.



I have to say I really liked how it felt and am very pleased with these initial aero mods. Some people may have seen just how pleased from my facebook status during the day



As far as the car in general was concerned, there were a couple of minor gremlins that appeared during the day causing me to stop on track...

1. the wire from oil pressure sender to ecu came loose so the ecu thought it saw zero oil pressure and killed the engine. Brilliant engine safety feature of syvecs ecu (if you set it up that way) but it was a tad embarassing lol. Quick reseat of the plug and all was good.

2. the drive by wire mechanism decided it would flip over the allowable error margin and subsequently switch off the throttle mechanism. Again embaressing and annoying aswell as red flagging the session cos it happened to stop the car in a dangerous place.



The car restarted again in both cases and drove off the track under its own power to enable me to debug in the paddock and head back out for some flying laps and give some passenger laps which we arent allowed to do in TA now due to MSA rules I think Rachel was a little scared as she asked me to drop her back into the paddock quite quickly LOL. Julian enjoyed his laps and was very good to see him having a great day.



Great day all in all and superb to see some old friends I hadnt seen for a while at the most picturesque track in the UK

The only downside is that this is the first track day i have done with the car in its current form and it feels very out of place on a track day now... or at least it did yesterday

 

Looking good Duncan

Think one of those clutches will be on the cards after xmas