astraboy

After going to Castle coombe last year, the chance to go back this year for half the price seemed too good to be true.
According to Si, we could turn up at 12-12.30 and pay 70 squid for half a day. Seeing as we did the whole day last time but were totally knackered by midday, the chance to have a lay in and still have a good time on track was carried unopposed .
However, before that I had to negotiate the pre track day nightmare of preparing the 3-door. The beast had just failed its MOT on low rear brake pads, dodgy N/S indicator bulb and lit ABS warning lights. Of course, I wanted to uprate rather than replace. I wanted Black Diamond discs and pads all round and after favourable reviews, a full set of Powerflex bushes. I called “ a well known Cosworth tuner” who quoted 1500 quid to supply and fit the above. After regaining consciousness I began looking for alternatives. A friend of mine said he could get a full set of bushes for 180.00 and according to Rick at Xtreme motorsport, a full set of discs and pads would be 364.00. A,fter that it as onto my friend Chris, He owns a fully sorted and fookin fast Sapphire Cosworth and has fitted the above to his motor in the past. He is also a mechanic at a garage so the Friday before the event, I dropped the car in, together with a box of parts. Have to big up Rick at Xtreme at this point cos he bust a gut to get all the parts to me by Friday and I was able to go because of him. Cheers geezer. After a few delays, I got the car back, sorted with a new MOT and all the bushes and brake parts fitted. The only problem was that I needed to bed the brakes in before I went on track. This meant doing 100 miles of town driving the night before to get the pads and the discs scrubbed in. After frequenting, Teddington, Kingston, Windsor, Slough, Egham and Staines more times than I need to, the trip said 100 miles and I could go to bed. One small prob was the ABS lights had lit up again in this time, however as it is girly mechanical ABS, I can Cadence brake faster than the **** poor 4 cycles a second that it manages so I was better off without. Besides, I’d had enough for one day, I was off to bed.
I woke up later than the 6 am I had to do last time but still early enough for my cats in invade and demand breakfast before I was fully awake. I was meeting Chris and Si in a sainsbury’s car park at 9.45 and had plenty of time to wash the car beforehand. I had just finished wiping the 3-door down when I got a call from Chris, Apparently there was a problem with Si’s Escort Cosworth. He’d been tightening the studs that hold the turbo to the manifold and two of them had snapped. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d broken the ally gasket which joined the turbo to the manifold. Chris had worked some kind of miracle and made a replacement gasket. This is because Ford in their infinite wisdom don’t stock said gasket as a part. Only Garrett do and there are precious few Garret stockists in Si’s home town. I got there at about 10am and was greeted by Si and Chris hunched over the engine bay with skinned knuckles and profanity abounding. At about 11 the car was back together and running. The airbox went on and we were on our way. The journey down the M4 was a little “progressive” at times, we wanted to get there. Still had time to pull the same trick of arranging a Cosworth in each lane of the Motorway though Only this time it was an example of one from each stage of development. My 3-door in the inside lane, Chris’s Saphhire in the middle lane and Si’s Escort in the outside lane.

astraboy

When we arrived, it was 12:30. Just in time for lunch. We entered the packed lunch shack and looked for the bloke who could arrange us the half day. Apparently we had to get our cars scrutinized first so we headed over to the noise test place. I knew mine was within limits and so was chris’s as we had them tested last year. Si passed too, so we paid our money and managed to blag being in the same track session together as well. The best part of this was that unlike last year, Helmets were compulsory. I had brought mine but the others were lidless. However the track had laid on free helmets. Its nice to see something which you aint ripped off for every once in a while. Some other places would have charged you a fiver for the privilige. We were all in session 4 and had 20 minutes to wait. I got busy getting the car ready for track. The first thing I did was remove my plates as I always do. However I was told in no uncertain terms to put them back on. I was allowed to cover them partially but this presented another problem as I have been building up a layer of carbon and dirt on my rear plate for the last 9 months and electrical tape would have removed that, So the collection of rave flyers in my boot were pressed into action and taped over the plates. I also checked and topped up my oil and placed my piece of paper with “GO FASTER” written on it over the speedo (its psychological thing ) With that I slammed my lid on and Paul, who was riding shotgun with the camcorder, did the same. For the first time I eyed up the competition. A fair few lotus’s, Caterhams and even another 3-door were there. However, we were under no illusions, we were lowering the tone bad style in the Fords but we soon got used to the status quo of people looking down their nose at us There was only one Impreza I’m afraid, Driven by a middle aged guy. I didn’t get to ask him if he was on the board, but he looked like he knew what he was doing.
Still, no time for that, I was out on the track before I knew it. I was trying hard to remember the lines from last year, with people with more experience passing us all the time. It was all very polite, but they were taking no prisoners out there. I was soon getting into the session when I noticed a couple of problems. There was a noticable vibration at high revs when I was cornering hard. To add to that the brakes felt odd too. The initial bite was amazing, after that it dropped off and I had to press the middle pedal harder to get the same level of retardation. This combined with the vibration meant we came off early to investigate. Still the flag ws dropped as we came off so we just missed the cool down lap. Diving under the car found rubbing marks on the exhaust where it passed the rear wishbone. No big deal and definatly nowt fatal. I could live with that. The brakes were more of a problem. Smoke was pouring off the rear pads but that turned out to be burning copper grease which had been smeared onto the back of the pads. I had also turned the discs blue from the heat, However they were no other problems and I decided to go out again and have another go to see if the braking would fix itself. Our session came round again and we were off again. It was all flooding back this time and I was starting to throw the car about and gaining more confidence in the brakes. All I did was press harder when the retardation dropped off and it seemed to solve the problem. Until about 9 minutes into the lap when I came to the turn just before the second chicane. I jumped on the brakes just like I had been doing when I felt the pedal go mushy and heard the “CLUNK” of it hitting the floorpan. ****e, I’d faded the ba$tards. I tried it again and got the tiniest bit of bite on the brakes. I dumped it into second and scrubbed off as much speed as I could. Still went round that turn on the limit. I didn’t bother accelerating again. I stuck the left indicator on and limped into the pits. Strangely, the marshall dropped the flag as we went past. I was drenched in sweat and shaking. My first brake fade. I heard stories of it happening to Cossies on track and it was closely followed by words like “Rollover” and “Reshelling” so I’d gotten off lightly considering what could have happened. I wasn’t the only one doing running repairs. Chris was pretty much okay, Si was doing less well. He was only boosting at 5psi for some reason, luckily he had brought along his original ECU and yellow injectors so off came the greens and aftermarket chip and back went the yellow and stage one items he was also getting bad brake judder At leat there was none of that for me this time. Last year the whole steering column was shaking. After about 10 minutes I had some purchase on the brake pedal so me and Paul went for a braking free spin on the road to speed the cooling along. During this time We discussed why it had happened. Paul suggested it was because I had “attacked” the brakes to harshly. Looking back he was right so It was with a lighter right foot that we went out again for our third run. Needless to say I was guarding the brakes like a nun guards her personal cucumber collection. I developed another technique to save the brakes by bleeding off the speed gradually and pressing the pedal gently, then increasing pressure rather than stamping on the ba$tard Once I hit the apex I got the most amount of fun powering out of the turn. Enough to **** off the Lotus drivers who couldn’t keep up that is . I also returned to my favourite game of getting lurid broadsides out of the second chicane. I was happily doing this till I got the perfect example. Nice and progressive slide, held with 1 complete turn of opposite lock and throttle. No snap back, thank you very much, I dialled it out by lifting and backing off at the same time. Class. Just then my fuel light snapped on so I dived into the pits. I was on vapours by the time I got to the Shell down the road. So I got another collection of little yellow fish in the tank and sweettalked the girl behind the counter into letting me have 3 packets of top trumps rather than the one I was entitled to. We shot back to the circuit to catch the last session but we were too late. The day had ended while we were jucing up so we packed up and headed home.
Class day out. Plus I now know what I need to do to the car to prep it for the Nurburgring next month. Anyone up for a group buy on dot 5.1 brake fluid and cold air ducting???
Cheers,
Astraboy.

Little Miss WRX

Superb report astraboy, enjoyed reading it

Which brake set up did you go for in the end? the Black Diamonds? It isn't clear in your post

astraboy

Black diamond drilled and grooved discs all round and Black diamond predator brake pads. The pads held up well, I just boiled the fluid which caused the fade. And the heart palpatations
astraboy.

rallychick

Top day out astraboy I am using my sisters profile because I don't want to get caught out being there and my bosses friend reads scoobynet Nice report there I just wish I had taken my sisters car now because it looked like fun You cured my fear of trackdays thanks. Did you look at the video tape yet?

Paul