Time Attack round 2 @ Croft > 11th May 2013

After my accident at Snetterton the car was sent to SD Motorsport to be rebuilt in time for Time Attack at Croft, Steven and the team @ SD Motorsport had achieved the almost impossible by getting the car rebuilt, as well as this we managed to get a full dry sump system from Zen Performance and this was installed too, bye bye low oil pressure!! ☺ Steven actually finished rebuilding the car at 02:40 in the morning on the day of Time Attack itself, this is an amazing achievement.

So the day came and morning warm up & practice went quite well, I completed a few laps on low boost and was getting an idea of which way the track went, I have not been to Croft before.

When we went in to qualifying Steven selected to use a higher power setting, after completing quite a few laps I was quite happy with getting to know the circuit, after a few laps I built up to one last quick lap which put me in the lead by 1.2 seconds, that’s 1st in qualifying and 50 points towards the championship ☺

In the final it was pretty much the same, I managed to get a clear lap and went for it, the car feels absolutely fantastic, with the mapping by Paul Blamire of Zen Performance and the car set-up completed by Steven (SD Motorsport) the car felt great. After my last lap and seeing the chequered flag I could see my wife and son celebrating “enthusiastically? I did not know how I had got on at this point but by their celebrations that had me thinking… is that a win?? Pulling in to pit lane I could see Steven Darley, Paul Blamire, Alyn from AS Performance and John Stevenson all celebrating, Steven indicated number 1 to me, I could not believe it. Again that’s another 100 points towards the championship and we are now leading the championship overall ☺

So next up is round 3 at Snetterton, after such a close final we are definitely not going to be standing still, we have received lots of handling goodies from Whiteline UK, Forge Motorsport have been absolutely fantastic with us, we will have a new Forge front mount intercooler and radiator installed. Mark at Lateral Performance has provided a new set of headers to replace the present ones which are damaged, he has also provided a few other parts too which will help greatly. The car is going back in to SD Motorsport to have a few more jobs completed and then were off to see the mapping guru Paul Blamire to get the car running even better!!!

I would like to give a big thanks to everyone who has helped make this possible > Steven Darley of SD Motorsport, Zen Performance, Forge Motorsport, Whiteline UK, Lateral Performance, ABW (autobodyworks) SW Motorsports, parts from AS Performance and also Scooby Spares, a massive thanks to all of you.

 

Big well done, especially after round 1, not bad for a first timer

 

As said elsewhere lee it was an outstanding result considering the circumstances and especially after all the hard work put in to it to get it ready after the bump,

A credit to all involved mate, Championship leader eh and still got you favourite track to come, good luck for the rest of the season

And condolences on loosing your manager

 

****

 

+1

 

 

Well done car looked great was a good day for subaru alround

 

Ta mate

 

Emma must have put Steven in a hot bath, he's shrunk!

Well done on Saturday, Lee, cracking result for you, and the rest of the lads.

Shame I couldn't stay for the finals, I like my bollocks where they are though.

 

yeh no worries mate, thanks for your help with all of the team, its really appreciated

 

So in preparation for Time Attack @ Snetterton there are a few jobs that I would like to be done, one is to increase the front end grip, I am sure those of you who push your cars hard will have had understeer at some point, this then delays/reduces throttle application. So in an effort to increase the grip the front end has I have got myself the Whiteline Roll Centre Kit, this reduces front end roll and keeps your camber, this increases the front tyres contact patch when its needed giving more grip 8)

Well thats the idea anyway!!! :wink:

 

So after a MAD week getting the car ready for Croft I missed a few of the things that happened during the rebuild. Whilst stripping the car and removing the engine we discovered damage to the headers so a new set was needed quickly, I knew that some of the fastest Subaru's in the country use the Lateral Performance headers so I gave Mark a call, thankfully he had the headers in stock plus a Cosworth timing belt and a few other parts too...PHEW!!

Whilst we were discussing the rebuild it was agreed that a dry sump system was an absolute must, although the car had been ok to date, we knew eventually the luck would run out and I would either keep getting the car going in to limp mode if I was fortunate enough for the Syvecs ECU to trip the car when it spotted the low oil pressure, however worse case senario the low oil pressure could cost me my engine!!

So we rang Paul Blamire of Zen Performance and asked (begged ) if he could send me a full dry sump kit up to Stevens? he replied no, he said he would bring it up personally, Paul knew we were running out of time getting ready for Croft so brought the dry sump kit and all parts needed with him and helped Steven with the installation, GREAT service indeed, TOP MAN

So once the dry sump was fitted a few pictures were taken, here are the shots of the Zen Performance dry sump system plus you can see my lovely new Lateral Performance headers too










Massive thanks goes out to Steven, Paul (Zen) and Mark (Lateral) for helping me get back out there

 

Great work by all involved, when are you getting the rest of the car painted white

 

collected all the front end panels, all nice and orange again, at least it stands out!!! keep an eye out for the Snetterton pictures and results, big push to get the car ready and a few improvements made too

 

In that picture Henry Hoover is lovin the headers and dry sump too

 

lmao

 

Looking forward to the next round tickets came through this morning. Just not looking forward to the 4 and a half hour drive lol

 

Agreed mate, and its a Sunday too booked the Monday off work so I can have a chilled drive back to Preston from Snetterton

 

Yeah I done the same didn't fancy it lol

 

Looking nice and pretty again

 

My car was in almost the exact same place a couple of years ago.

 

Looking great again

 

Top job getting that back together

Just watch out for the wall next time

 

really like your build Toffee

Is the belt of the pump for the dry sump not a bit close to the headers?

Have you got some heat protection


carry on

 

^^ Cheers Jon, yeh will have a little look at the wall when passing

^ Thanks Mike, the belt design has been selected to work in this area, the designer (Paul Blamire @ Zen Performance) works on some of the best Subaru's in the county and is a very clever man indeed, the same system is on some of the very best cars and has been proven to work very well. We will keep an eye on this and lots of other items as you do when looking after a race car, but I am certain it will be fine.

At last I have also managed to get some new wheel nuts from Alyn at AS Performance, trying to find MSA approved steel wheel nuts that fit nicely is not easy, I was after the slightly longer open ended steel wheel nuts but in 17mm rather than the normal 19mm.

With the 19mm you can struggle to get a socket over the top of the nut and you end up scratching the wheel to hell, your also not certain if your torque settings are correct because the socket is dragging on the wheel, so Alyn has released 17mm wheel nuts that are a lot easier to live with, may seem like a small thing, but knowing my wheels are on properly matters to me

Cheers,
Lee.

 

cheers mate, it`s always rotating forgot that. Looking forward for further news and pictures, carry on with the good work aaa1

 

ta mate

 

Looks fantastic

 

^^^^ cheers dude

So its Time Attack Rd3 on Sunday at Snetterton, were doing the 200 circuit, in preparation for this weekend Steven @ SD Motorsport has managed to resolve the few issues we were having at Croft, the car has gone on to Paul Blamire @ Zen Performance and he has managed to have a look at the ECU settings and map (since the ecu was upgraded) to get the best out of the car. So with these few tweeks I am really looking forward to driving the car again and enjoying some much needed seat time

I have been in contact with Daren at ABW and agreed to take the car back there after Snetterton, Daren is going to modify the existing body work to make sure it does not rub on the wide wheels I have which have not been on the car yet, Daren is going to cut the OE arches even further, modify the wide body kit and then add arch extension to cover the wider wheels. Previously the body work was modified to run the existing 18 x 9.5" ET35 wheels, the new wheels are 18 x 10.5" ET17, but were using 5mm spacers with these!!!

At the first round of TA the car was running 15mm lower but had to be lifted to stop the tyres rubbing, I am hoping to drop the rear back down by 15mm so it is where we started at. After that I will be looking to fit the Whiteline parts we received which will allow us to lower the front of the car, I will get some pictures up as soon as the work at ABW is completed

Ta,
Lee.

 

Good luck for this weekend Lee, kick some evo butt!!