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Thanks guys appreciate the kind comments
I have had to adjust them slightly to reduce the angle of attack of them the airflow would probably have been too high and caused the air to stall so on version 2 now.
Wee update, after taking some advice as mentioned above I should have went with my gut feelings and what I know from aircraft theory. Anyway a bit of work still to do with them but half way done now.
More importantly the new Gucci Whiteline 3 way competition dampers have arrived. Huge thanks to Graeme Jeram for all his help with these. They are very well made with some really nice touches but more importantly it's what's going on inside that really matters. Can't wait to get these on track later in March.
I have the KW Clubsports dampers that were on the car last year for sale, they are like new with very little use.
Last edited by Arch; 24 February 2017 at 01:57 AM.
Wee update, after taking some advice as mentioned above I should have went with my gut feelings and what I know from aircraft theory. Anyway a bit of work still to do with them but half way done now.
More importantly the new Gucci Whiteline 3 way competition dampers have arrived. Huge thanks to Graeme Jeram for all his help with these. They are very well made with some really nice touches but more importantly it's what's going on inside that really matters. Can't wait to get these on track later in March.
I have the KW Clubsports dampers that were on the car last year for sale, they are like new with very little use.
Arch those whiteline's look the part if you could pm me a ball park figure as im looking to get my remote resevoir coilovers either serviced and if not will be looking to replace them.
Wee delivery from Alyn at AS Performance more custom engineering bits, new custom brackets for the front AP brakes they are superb total of 1.85kg weight saving on the old steel brackets also some new Gucci bells. Some more brake fluid and new front brake lines and new Pagid RST3 pads.
Last edited by Arch; 27 February 2017 at 01:33 PM.
Well this isn't the update I had hoped to give. After a lot of hours in the garage over the winter I had two test sessions organised at Knockhill on Fri 24th March and Sat 25th March.
The Friday evening session was to be more of a shake down and check angles of the rear wing and see what effect the wing and canards would have on the car. I had done a couple of laps to warm the car up and came into the pit area to check the tyre temps and I got a windscreen of coolant all over the windscreen from the expansion pipe mmm did think head gaskets but they had been fine under baby boost so let the car cool down and went back out. this time at 1.6 bar done three laps and no issues then on 4th lap boom **** load of coolant again while on boost up the short straight before Clarks and again on the back straight so it was game over and head gaskets gone. So not really learned anything other than pink coolant stinks lol
Bob even managed to sneak into the pics lol
Well after a chat with Graeme and a chat with Steve Whitson it was engine out and engine over to Steve. I got the engine out the next day (Sat) took it over to Graeme on the Sunday and Bob kindly took it over to Steve Whitson on the Monday morning, thanks Bob your awesome owe you a good few of these.
Massive thanks to Graeme for organising everything and cant thank Steve Whitson enough for looking at it so quickly, just shows the spirit and desire to get out on track from all at team Whiteline
So this is how things look now
Steve looks to have pulled the rabbit out of the hat and has done me a huge favour and turned it round in F1 like time scales. If all goes well I will collect it tomorrow and get it back in over the weekend.
Thanks also to Alyn at As Performance for getting all the gaskets etc I need for the getting it all back together.
Proper update, most of the pictures are the same tho.
16th April was the first round of SLS, the run up to the first event was not ideal, I didn't get much in the way of testing done with the new wing and turbo changes due to the head gasket issue but the car was ready which is the main thing, getting points down in the first event is critical.
The weather on the day was shocking probably the worst I had driven in for a few years. The warm up session was a bit of a non-entity with most people being very cautious as the track was very wet with lots of spray causing some visibility issues. I went out on actuator pressure which proved to be the right idea as I was spinning wheels all over the place, you couldn't really take much of the kerbs at all they were like ice so all in all hard to take anything from the session at all. At this point I was sitting 2nd in class but the reality is that no one was pushing on.
The practice session was a mirror image of the warm up wet, maybe not just as bad, but still hard to get any decent power down so stayed on low boost for that one as well. The times were all slow it was one of those where it was so wet it was not worth pushing as there was nothing to be gained from practice. Pretty much as above slipped to 3rd in class but again times were not important with everyone looking more at lines more than speed and times.
So with everyone watching the clouds over lunch it was looking a bit more positive as our qualifying session approached, the track was drying all the time so decided to do a couple of laps get a feel and then gradually crank the boost up if the track was drying. First couple of laps went ok rack was drying well but kerbs were still a bit slippy so put a few laps in on actuator pressure probably 150 ish possibly more BHP down on full boost, car felt good so came in to get the tyre pressures checked and then have a bit of a go. Unfortunately a red flag as a result of Lowell Forsyth having a braking issue at the end of the straights seen his Exige coming off, fortunately he was ok and looked like just cosmetic damage to the car. Once the session restarted I put in a couple of banker laps, still not dry so times were only around 1 minute so decided with the session drawing to an close to go for it, pushed hard down the straight braked late and car went round the hairpin with a little bit of oversteer caused by the wet track after that I decided not to take all the kerb ay Clark's just in case so up the back straight pushing in 5th car moves all over the track going anticlockwise but braked too early and had to go back on the power in 4th, still felt quickish so up the short straight to the chicane no idea why I did it but decided to take all the kerb, turned in 4th gear and fired straight at the kerb end result got flung straight across the track sideways and a wee pirouette later sat facing the wrong way in the gravel thinking mmm that was quite quick up until there lol. That pretty much ended the session so drove out and back round with no time for another lap so in the end finished 3rd in qualifying oops that wasn't what I had hoped for.
So the final what to do track looked dry but no way of knowing the condition of the kerbs so decided right from the off to go with a mid boost setting and not take the kerbs at the chicane, it would compromise the time and be a risk in terms of what others decided but thought after what just happened I would rather have points on the board than sitting in the gravel thinking mmm screwed that up. I came out of the pits and decided to push quite hard on the out lap to get some heat into the tyres, the straight and hairpin were uneventful car went round hairpin as normal no dramas there, up the back straight in 5th car feeling like its all over the track as normal so speed must be not too bad, braked early for Clark's little tentative over the kerbs and thought bollocks could have gone faster, hard in 4th up to the chicane braked hard and through just touching kerbs slow through there which compromised the next section, it was definately dry so should have went for it, had lost a bit of speed into Scotsman so held it in 3rd a little longer than normal going up duffus before going into 4th and up and over the crest of Duffus not as fast as normal just wasn't carrying the speed rest is easy into 5th foot planted and over the line. Went round the cool down lap thinking that's not good enough for first but should be ok for 2nd, came round into pits to see our Steven jumping around stopped and he told me I was quickest in class, didn't really believe it as I was far too tentative but hey I will take it. Once back in the pits had a chat with John Stevenson and he had selection issues with hios sequential box at the hairpin which slowed him down a bit so worked out for me on the day but was fortunate. So first event and decent points but was under no illusions that the time was not brilliant.
So after round one I decided to have a look at an oil leak I had from the RH rocker cover and give the car a general once over. While getting the car up on axle stands I had a look at the drivers side brake rotor and was horrified at what I found. The RH rotor had 3 cracks each over half way through the disc and the LH rotor with one crack the same and 2 more starting, I did not feel anything on track during the final so suspect this happened either during the last stages of the final or more likely when the car was parked up and the pads were heat soaking into the discs but either way I got lucky.
So after a few chats with Alyn at AS Performance and Graeme Jeram at Whiteline it was obvious that my sprint and hillclimb set up with zero brake cooling and plastic inner arches still in place was cooking the brakes and causing extreme heat cycles which ultimately led to the result above. The more people I spoke to the more common this is so brake cooling needed but unfortunately I would not have time to resolve the cooling problem before the next round. So with Alyn looking at some options Graeme kindly offered to lend me his rotors for this round, thanks Graeme what a star and thanks also to Alyn for all the work looking at ways to resolve this long term.
So quick rotor swap and rocker cover gasket changed, there were no other issues other than lots of gravel and muck under the car lol.
Next up round 2, 14th May and clockwise, I prefer the anticlockwise direction but my clockwise times last year had gradually been improving.
The weather was supposed to be good for the Sunday so hopefully have a dry event for a change. I did see an issue straight away before the warm up, I hadn't seen it before because I had the narrow wheels on to get the car on and off the trailer but once the wider wheels were on it was obvious the rear RH wheel looked like it had lost camber, a quick drive over to a flat part of the paddock and a quick check using a straight edge and a phone app confirmed this, didn't have time to change it before warm up so went with it as it was.
To be honest warm up went well car wasn't that unsettled although I did feel that it was not going round the hairpin the way it did last year it just did not feel as good or as quick, it was slow to pick up coming out of the hairpin due to the entry speeds and speed going round hairpin obviously slower. Thought it was maybe just me, time was ok for warm up tho and was not really pushing hard and not on full boost had a 56.8 so happy ish with that.
Decided to try and tweek the camber in between the warm up and practice sessions but that was proving difficult as the ground isn't exactly level and trying to get a reference was almost impossible so did it by eye lol. It looked a little better but had maybe put too much on but decided to give it a go. In reality I hadn't noticed a massive difference in warm up so wasnt concerned about that at all and knew that wasn't the issue at the hairpin.
So next up practice, weather was still being kind with a perfectly dry track out we went, done a couple of warm up laps then a quickish lap but not full on it, went for a quick lap and caught one of the others at the chicane so bailed out of the lap, up through Clark's and went for it again, car felt good but still slow round the hairpin which compromises your speed up the straight, up the straight and over Duffus, braked too early but ok still quicker than previous lap, went for it through the chicane, car drifted right over to the left so got that right I thought, in fourth up to Clark's down into 3rd and up over Clark's didn't get thrown far enough left so not quick enough through there but still ok for practice but felt really good so far, braked late for hairpin and tried turning in earlier bit better but still not as good as last year definitely something not right and suspect I know what. Anyway back on the power and bang and almighty back fire and car starts to lose power, bollocks because that felt quite a decent run. Looked at dash and had a lambda warning light mmm that cant be good either wideband lambda sensor has failed or maybe timing belt has jumped a tooth but limped up the straight, put it into neutral and car reved ok so thought mmm by this time I was at duffus and car is slowly dying, my thoughts were oops should have stopped on the straight really don't want to stop here so limped down duffus and round Scotsman and car died. Guys were out quick and towed the car back to the paddock. Was about to take one of the timing belt covers off when John Stevenson suggested pulling the plug off the crank sensor and turning it over, if it turned over fine probably not the belt and if it didn't the damage was already done anyway. So did that and it turned over fine so time to look at the logs. With some help from John it became obvious that it was oil surge and the ecu had basically cut the power hence the back fire and more than likely switched off the pumps hence why the car was slowly dying. I knew the car was marginal without a dry sump due to the cornering forces but this had never happened before. Quick check of the oil level and it was down a little but not much but obviously enough, so topped it up a bit over and decided to go for it in qualifying anyway.
So with lunch on us I decided to try and get camber closer so adjusted it again but just as hard to judge so did it by eye again, probably closer but still a visible difference left to right. Would have to do for today.
Qualification, well it didn't go well, was hard to get space on track and we had a couple of issues with yellow and red flags which cant be helped and I had caused one previously so I wasn't bothered about that its just the way it is. I had done one lap but had not been clean caught a couple of cars so knew it wasnt quick, I came into the pits on the red flag for George's issue and looked at my stop watch and thought ok still time for a couple of laps sat for a short time but then the marshalls gave the chequered flag to end the session which was a bit annoying as my stop watched showed over 3 mins still to run and I hadn't got one quick lap, end result 3rd in qualifying - not good and time was awful at 58.6 secs almost 2 seconds slower than qualifying oops. At the end of the day its still my fault I should have driven better and taken the chances earlier to get a lap in ultimately bad decision making from my end so no complaints it was the same for everyone.
The final was up next sat on the line waiting to go and it started raining, not much but thought straight back to same scenario in round 5 last year where I spun at Duffus, to be honest it didn't look like it was coming to much so just switched off too it. I could give a quick right up about the lap but in reality I cant actually remember much apart from making a right mess of the chicane missing a gear at Clark's and thinking at the hairpin I don't remember getting here end result a pathetic attempt and a 58.4 again 2 secs slower than warm up and 3rd in class. No excuses car was fine track was dry I just drove like a f****. So all in all a day to forget.
Have to say a huge thanks to John Stevenson for his help with the oil surge issue just shows the spirit of this event. Also thanks to Alyn at As Performance and Graeme Jeram from Whiteline for all their help.
It has now been confirmed 100% that the issues I had with the car at rounds 3 and 4 of Super Lap Scotland will not be fixed in time for rounds 4 and 5. It was always my intention to break the car, and possibly retire myself, at the end of this year but given the scenario with points and the fact the car is already in bits it seems logical to bring that decision forward and break the car now. I will therefore start breaking the car next week and will get an inventory of parts that will be for sale done over the next few days and post it in the usual forums and groups. I would like to thank Graeme Jeram at Whiteline, Alyn Stockton at AS Performance, Andy Forrest at AFP, Simon Stanley at Chevron Motorsport, Steve Whitson at SW Motorsport, Lee Owen at Owen Developments, James Oliver at Racinglines, John Stevenson, Bob Moyes, John Stewart at Flat Out Photography, Rab Waters, Graeme Bremner, David Reid (Scottish Sprints), Scott Sheridan, Lesley Sheridan and last but definately not least my two sons David Bain and Steven Bain for all the help and assistance over the last 12 years. The good thing is I look forward to continue working with most, if not all, with a new project I have planned.
24 February 2017, 01:07 AM
